Extenuating Circumstances
by Crimson1
Summary: Obligatory Sex Epilogue! What happens to Raito after the manga? Heaven or Hell? Not quite. Here's what you've been waiting for, an M rating. Enjoy! Please R&R.
1. Not Heaven or Hell

EXTENUATING CIRCUMSTANCES

* * *

Yagami Raito was dead.

The air had vanished, deflating him and leaving the void barren and silent as he drifted within it. Pain spread thorned vines over his heart and squeezed. A heart attack. His chest was still constricted from it, throbbing, repeating like a mantra that he was dead. Dead.

Yagami Raito was dead.

Raito opened his eyes—did he still have eyes—and saw nothing, black that tunneled into black, empty. The vines on his heart tightened, choking him with grief, panic, loneliness and regret. The emotions couldn't all be his. They thrummed like a cord plucked inside him and vibrated deep in the caverns of his chest. It was deafening. There had to be other sources, a dozen, a hundred, a hundred thousand other sources screaming at him with their emotional echo.

What had he done? What had he become? How could he be dead? Dead.

Yagami Raito was…

"Dead…" he whispered, and he could hear his voice passing through lips, real lips. This couldn't be nothing. This couldn't be nowhere. This couldn't be eternity. If he could speak and feel such searing pain then there had to be something out there.

As if to answer his assertion, the darkness cracked, two separate points breaking open and blossoming in the distance. Raito could see it. On his left was light, bright and brilliant blue. On his right was the absence of color, so much deeper than black that it looked like blood. He could see them both, growing, filling his vision as he drew closer. He waited for the moment when the right side, darker than death, would take him, but he didn't veer one way or the other. His heading remained straight and direct between the two broken points.

No Heaven or Hell. Not for you.

Raito felt the air return, stinging his cheeks as he moved through it and striking every part of his body. It was then that he knew he was naked but that he was also whole. He could feel the air on his toes as well as his chest. The speed of the air increased like wind, like racing down a highway on top of a car.

Was he falling? Would he fall forever?

The ground met his feet with such force he crumbled to his knees and gasped. The air was stale but it existed. He could feel the ground, black hard rock, and it too was real.

Raito stood, surprised to find his knees unmarred by the impact. He stared at his hands, pale and trembling, and touched his heart to feel how fast it was beating. It was beating. He could hear it in his eardrums, feel it through his fingertips. He felt alive, surely and completely alive, and looked up in joy.

His own face stared back at him, smiling. The smile disappeared just as he felt his own slipping. A mirror. Large and ornate in cast iron black it was two times his size and stood just a foot in front of him. He was transfixed, unable to look around at anything else.

So young. Was he not yet a quarter century? Was he really this grown up child, thin and naked and frightened? He couldn't be alive. He knew that. He was dead. And nothing could be said against it.

Reaching out to meet his hand to the image's hand, he touched the glass only to recoil. Cold. Freezing. He looked at his hand and a scream died in his throat. The hand was changing. It was not a hand but something growing and sharpening into a fearsome claw.

Raito tried again to scream and again he failed. Like a virus whatever was happening to his hand was spreading, his other hand becoming gnarled and taloned like the first. He looked up into the mirror and he could see the black sickness moving through him as ribbons of it coiled across his skin. At the same time his arms were stretching, ape-like, to hang long at his sides and his legs were growing in likeness. It forced his shoulders to pull forward, hunched.

The black ribbons were more than a sickness, he soon realized, they were hardening, black leather that covered and bound him. Up his legs, his torso, and around his arms, everything was being wrapped in black.

The leather continued to thicken and on his feet were suddenly boots, heavy like shackles. He choked as more leather tightened around his throat in a collar and he brought his hands up to pull at it. But his claws cut into his chin and he had to bring them down again or risk tearing his throat.

Staring terrified into the mirror, Raito waited for the disease to finish its course, fearing the final outcome. For a moment his face was still his, out of place with his new body. But soon that too changed. His hair stretched long as if every strand had been pulled. His nose sunk into his face until it was nothing but two bat-like slits. His mouth remained but fangs grew from his canines. Finally, he watched in horror as his eyes grew another size larger and his irises turned black like their pupils while the whites of his eyes glowed red.

When Raito at last found his voice, he threw back his head and howled.

tbc...

A/N: Yes, I know I'm working on my Saiyuki fic, but this bug bit me and I am a slave to my passions. I imagine some of you can guess what dear Raito-kun is going through right now and you would be right. For those of you who do not know, stay tuned for the explanation and further entertainment. This plans to be a fic of around 5 or 6 parts. I hope to do justice to how I think the story really should have ended, or rather, how it really could continue since this is set after Raito's death. I hope I've caught enough of your interest to keep you reading.

Crim


	2. Company

Part Two

* * *

"You certainly are dramatic, aren't you…Yagami Raito."

Raito spun on his newly boot-clad feet, heavy and uncomfortable in this skin that wasn't his. Everything was clinging to him too tightly, even the claws that had become his hands. It felt like a costume, like it had been stitched onto his body, but he knew it went deeper than that, deeper than skin, straight into the marrow of his bones. The black, the sickness. It was in him.

His eyes scanned the dark room he had been too preoccupied to notice before. It was a cavern, a huge expanse of black rock like the ground he had landed on. To his right he saw the barest hint of light at the top of a long staircase carved into the stone wall. In front of him, lit by its own light—or was it that his eyes were beginning to adjust to their new way of seeing—rested a throne, unevenly carved and decorated with skulls. And there, lounging like a bored king, sat something far more fearsome than his own changed appearance. Raito knew it was a shinigami. He had seen enough of them in his life to recognize how they fell only slightly short of looking human. The creature before him was shaped like a man but made of bone, his head a jeweled skull. He was covered in finery, truly a king, despite the death that clung to him more securely than any gem or strand of gold. King. A king.

The King of the Shinigami.

"We haven't had one like you in centuries," the King said, his bony chin resting on long skeletal fingers. His eyes were diamonds and they stared forward blankly, though Raito knew they were looking right at him. "A shinigami by punishment is a rare thing. But then you've been a shinigami for years, haven't you, and better than the rest of those lazy fools, by far."

Raito stared, feeling the tightness in his cheeks and the sting of his fangs as he gnawed nervously at the skin. He had to stay calm. He turns, facing the mirror again, but the same image stared at him, the image of him mangled and mutated into a thing. He was covered all over in black, his hair longer and darker, his face no longer his with the bat nose and red eyes, and the markings he hadn't at first noticed, streaking red from the corners of his mouth and up towards his cheekbones. Like blood.

Raito backed away from the mirror, and his steps brought him right off the small ledge he has been poised on. He fell hard on his curved and deformed back and scrambled to right himself, knowing he was even closer to the King now. Indeed when he stood and turned back the throne was right behind him.

"I…I'm not a shinigami," he stuttered.

A rattle left the King like a failed attempt at a laugh. He pointed a bony finger at the mirror. "It is your world that tells you a mirror cannot lie. It was brought in especially for you, Yagami Raito."

Against his will Raito felt his gaze drawn back to the mirror, elevated on the ledge he had first found bearings. He could see the top of his head reflected in the base of it, his red eyes staring too wide, and then the mirror cracked and shattered like an eruption, spraying glass towards Raito's face.

Raito screamed again and fell to the floor, protecting his head with his too long arms. But he felt nothing, not a single shard of glass. When he looked back, the mirror had vanished and there were no signs of debris.

"Things from the human world don't last very long here," the King said. And he rattled again, gruff and unfriendly.

Raito had to stay calm. He had to stay…calm. He wasn't a shinigami. He wasn't condemned to this. He was a god. He was Kira. He was creating a world that would have been grander than anything any nation had ever achieved. Death couldn't mean an eternity of this.

"Only as long as an eternity as you wish it, Yagami Raito."

Raito jumped. He had not realized he was speaking aloud, ranting in harsh whispers into his clawed hands. He turned to face the King again. "Punishment. You said…" he shook his head, "What is it? What is my punishment?"

"Just what you see. You are shinigami now. And a shinigami you will be until that life expires."

"Then if I wished, it could end now," Raito said, and because he was speaking, he was beginning to notice that his voice had also changed. It was rougher and grating, like speaking around a throat full of gravel. "There must be a way for a shinigami to die."

Again, the King rattled. "Shinigami die when their lives run out. Your life has just begun, Yagami Raito. You are a young shinigami. Even if you choose to never write in your Death Note," And as he spoke the King produced a Death Note, simple and black without lettering like Ryuuku had added to his, "you will still live one hundred years as a shinigami. Of course, you can always choose to extend this life," the King grinned with his lack of lips and large teeth, "By taking others' lives. You seem to be rather talented at that."

Raito jumped back as the Death Note was thrown at his feet—his black booted feet with long skinny legs that bent unnaturally. He didn't want to look at himself. He was glad the mirror was gone.

The claw that was now Raito's right hand reached for the Death Note. He picked it up as if fascinated, as if he had never seen one. Now that he had touched it, it was his, forever, unless he dropped it for another to claim. He was a shinigami by design not by choice. His body had molded to fit this very ideal and the instrument was in his hands.

No, they weren't hands, and they never would be again. There was something almost like a pencil but not that stuck to the back of the book. Raito knew without touching it that he could use it, that he could write as he could write when he was human. But it would never be the same. Because he wasn't human.

Yagami Raito was a shinigami.

"No…I'm not…a shinigami…" Raito breathed, gripping the Death Note hard in both hands so that his talons made scratches on the cover. He looked up, his new red eyes wider than ever, and stared at the King. "I'm not. I'm not!"

"Yagami Raito," boomed the King, and the strange humor that had filled his words before faded into the sudden seriousness of the echoes filling the cavernous room, "Welcome to the world of Death. The world you chose to belong to the first moment you wrote a name in a Death Note that wasn't your own." He extended the finger he had used to point at the mirror and pointed it at Raito's chest. "You wrapped every binding on your new body with your own hands. Do not forget that."

Raito could only shake his head as his feet backpedaled and he gripped his Death Note harder. "No…I'm not. I'm not a shinigami! I didn't do anything wrong!"

The only response this time was that rattle, full and hollow as it filled the room around him.

Raito couldn't stand it. He had to escape. He had to get away from that sound. Get away from all of it. He turned and saw that small spark of light atop the stares and ran, stumbling over limbs he wasn't used to using until he was all but crawling up the steps. The Death Note was still in his hand, and though the King's laughter followed him up and out of the great room, Raito cared only for freedom

The light of the shinigami world was surprisingly bright when he got to the top and stepped out into what looked like fields of dead earth and bone. There was a sky but it wasn't a sky. Everything was grey and black and skeleton white. There were other shinigami, some small like deformed children, others tall and shaped like dragons, and others still like Ryuuki, like himself now with features that tried to be human but never quite were.

Raito wanted nothing to do with any of it. He just wanted out. There had to be a way out. He turned away from the shinigami, who were staring at him now, some laughing in their own versions of rattles and hisses, and ran as fast and as hard as he could down a path.

He could hear some of the shinigami calling out to him. Some of them even knew his name.

"We've watched you, Yagami Raito!"

"You're one of us now!"

"The best of us, finally come home!" And there was laughter in every word.

No, Raito thought. I'm not home. This isn't home. I want to go home

He ran, he ran so hard his feet left the ground and he realized he had wings. He had joked with Ryuuku once that he would have gladly done the shinigami eye deal if it had been for wings instead. Every human longs to fly. But the wilted black feathers that pushed out of his body to form wings were not welcome. It startled him and sickened him so much he willed them to retract without trying. He had started to soar up off the ground and when the wings left he dropped to the ground on all fours. It didn't hurt but something stung in his chest where his heart had been and he cried.

It seemed such a cruel joke that no tears fell but Raito sobbed into the black ground, shaking and clawing at the earth that wasn't his Earth. He stares at his right hand, the hand still holding his Death Note. He wanted it gone. With a cry that growled in his throat he flung it away from him, not looking to see where it had gone. He tried to calm, he tried to sit up and pull himself together, but he could only cling to his knees and rock, wishing it all away. He just wanted to go home. He didn't want this life. He hadn't meant for it to turn out like this.

The Death Note appeared in front of Raito's face so suddenly, he nearly fell over backwards to keep away. Only then did he realize it was being handed to him by a surprisingly human looking white hand.

He turned away from this figure, whoever it was, and pulled his knees in tighter. "Leave me alone. I don't want that thing," he said.

"Oh?" the shinigami behind him questioned, and the voice was low, very low, like dark silk torn on the rocks, "You might regret dropping it," he said, "Isn't this what the great Kira always wanted."

Raito shuddered. Did all the shinigami know of him? "Leave me alone," he said again, "I don't want that book, I don't want anything in this world, I just want to—"

"Go home."

It sounded so juvenile to hear it aloud. Raito couldn't bring himself to respond. He sensed that the shinigami sat down behind him, felt eyes watching the back of his head, and as much as he wished the shinigami would leave him in peace, he was surprisingly soothed to have the company. This shinigami did not speak his words with scorn.

"This isn't what you wanted then?" the shinigami asked.

Raito kept his eyes closed, his shin resting on his pulled in knees. "Who could want this," he said, "Nothing in this world is alive. I'm not alive anymore. I'm not me at all. It wasn't…it wasn't supposed to end this way."

"Then how should it have ended?"

"I don't know. The dream should have worked. I should have won. Was it wrong for me to want the world to be a better place, to make it better, actively, instead of just watching criminals move in and out of the justice system without ever being _served_ justice?"

"Mmm. An interesting question. But then is it right to think one man could ever know what real justice would be for another?"

Raito didn't response. He was tonguing his fangs, trying to convince himself they weren't real. That none of this was. He wasn't wrong. He hadn't done anything wrong.

"You really think you are innocent, don't you?"

Raito growled and though the sound startled him he did not allow it to make him back down. "Shut up. You don't know. You shinigami sitting here watching like you're better, like it doesn't matter if you kill people but God forbid a human try to do the same. I never killed arbitrarily. Not once."

"Oh? Then all of the people you killed were criminals?"

"Of course."

"All of them?"

"I…well…there were times when I had no choice and—"

"And you killed people who might have wanted the same dream as you, only in different ways. Is that really justice, Raito-kun?"

Raito…kun?

"But then, maybe I didn't understand justice either. After all, I knew the truth for so long, but I didn't want to believe my only friend was also my greatest enemy."

No. It couldn't be. Raito felt his blood run cold like frost in his veins. But he knew that voice, changed as it was. He knew.

"Oh well. I never planned to live forever. But this sure is interesting, don't you think, Raito-kun?"

Raito couldn't do it. He couldn't turn. He couldn't look. But when he felt the figure behind him stand and move, his chin lifted up on his own and from his hunched and huddled position he saw wide black eyes he knew well.

Yagami Raito was a shinigami. And he wasn't alone.

"Ryuuzaki…"

tbc...

A/N: Hehehe. Bet you saw that coming, but I don't care. I hope you'll stick with me because I am not done messing with dear Light quite yet. Oh no. L LIVES!

Crim


	3. L the shinigami

Part Three

* * *

"Ryuuzaki…"

It couldn't be him. But it was. L was a shinigami. And he was standing beside Raito in all his shinigami glory.

Holding out Raito's new Death Note with those white, human hands, the reality of L's humanity became startlingly clear to Raito as he took in the entirety of his companion. The hands were all that remained of the young man he had known. That and the eyes. Large and black and sunken, the eyes were L's, the nose as well, but his smile had been stretched obscenely, like Ryuuku's, lips painted dark blue and mouth filled with fangs. There were also markings, like Raito's markings, a different blue of little arrows beneath each of L's eyes. His hair was his hair, black and scraggly, but there was more of it, stretching down his back and over his shoulders to his waist.

L's hands were human but his feet, Raito saw now, were like a Raptor's in a museum or a movie, taloned and twisted and not at all human. They were bare, as L always kept his feet, but the dexterous toes were gone. Like Raito, L's arms and legs had been stretched, but the hunch to L was far more extreme than Raito's own, fitting considering how the young man had hunched in life. L's clothing was a mock of the clothing he had worn in life as well, like a tattered white shroud to emulate the white shirt, and torn jeans. His wings were out as if he had just recently stopped flying before meeting up with Raito. They reminded Raito of Rem's, white and bony.

L had become a shinigami fitting of him, but for him to be one at all, for him to be standing before Raito made no sense. L had never written in one of the Death Notes. There was no reason for L to be punished. There was no reason for L to be here of his own accord. And therefore Raito couldn't help but assume that L was there for _his_ accord.

Revenge.

"Stay…stay away from me!" he shouted, scrambling to his feet and fumbling over his new limbs to escape L's close contact. He held out his claws in defense. "You're dead! You're not a shinigami. You shouldn't be here."

L cocked his head to the side, his large mouth forever in a smile that might never be real, and held the Death Note out further towards Raito. "Yet here I am, therefore, what can I be but a shinigami? The logic isn't all that advanced on this one, Raito-kun. And please, do take your book. You're going to need it. All those people to kill for spoiling your plans. You can see all of their faces now, all of their names. Isn't _that_ what you've wanted?"

Raito felt sick to his stomach. L's eyes were the most familiar and human about him other than his hands, and yet they tore the deepest into Raito's skin and clung like claws.

What _he_ wanted? What did it matter what he wanted now?

"I don't want anything. It's over."

"Over?" L pushed, taking an awkward, animalistic step towards Raito that rocked him on his monstrous feet. "But you can have it all now. You can make the world in your image and destroy every last criminal in a matter of months, maybe days. Shinigami do not need sleep, much as they sleep anyway. Think of how easy it would be, Raito-kun. Kira acting from the grave."

"Stop it!"

L had begun to take small halted steps closer to Raito after his initial advance, and with Raito frozen in place, hands still up to protect himself, L stopped an arms reach from touching Raito with the outstretched Death Note.

"Stop," Raito said again, "Stop mocking me. You think I don't know I'm finished? That worthless twerp that could never fill your shoes beat me and now I'm here. I should have seen clearer but I didn't. I failed. You probably enjoyed watching at the end, didn't you? But it wasn't you who finished me."

"No," L said, and if his mouth could pout Raito was certain it would have. L's arm dropped finally, the Death Note hanging at his shrouded side. "I did so want to catch Kira myself. I was terribly depressed for quite some time. But you are wrong, Raito-kun. I did not enjoy your death at all."

"Why, because you didn't get to cause it yourself?" The words spit from Raito unthinkingly, but the raised eyebrow from L in response was enough to remind Raito of how foolish he was thinking. "You're a shinigami," Raito said, breathless now, "You could have killed me."

"And I didn't. One would think that means I do not intend you harm, Raito-kun, despite your defensiveness towards me," L indicated Raito's held-up claws, "And besides, we are both shinigami. If revenge was what I wanted, what could I do to you? We couldn't hurt each other even if we tried."

Clearly, death had robbed Raito of his quick thinking. He shook his head to get himself to focus. What was L saying to him? He wasn't there for revenge? He had been a shinigami since his death but he hadn't tried to kill Raito? There were too many pieces missing for Raito to come to any plausible conclusions.

He had to admit defeat.

"I don't understand," he said. And he waited for L, who would surely enjoy getting the chance to monologue his great wits, to answer him.

"What don't you understand, Raito-kun? Why I am here or why I didn't kill you?"

"Either. Both."

L inched forward and Raito flinched. L couldn't hurt him, he knew that, but that didn't put him at ease. He had killed the man. Surely there was resentment on L's part. Who wouldn't feel resentment towards their killer?

Technically, Raito hadn't been the one to kill L, not actively, but he had led the circumstances in that direction. If not the act, the plot was his, and therefore the guilt was his as well. L had to blame Raito.

"No," L said, and for a moment Raito wondered if he was talking out loud again. "No," L said again, "I never wrote in one of the Death Notes. I am not here for punishment."

Raito, feeling too close-quartered with L, shifted his weight back, leaving a good few feet between them. He stayed on guard, not sure what to expect from all this. The day certainly wasn't run-of-the-mill in any sense. He listened and waited for L to continue.

"When I died, because my death had been caused by a shinigami I was given the choice to become one myself. Heaven or this. Apparently, no one has ever chosen to become a shinigami before, unless the choice is between this and Hell, of course. So you see my transformation was different from yours."

"Different how?" Raito asked.

L tilted his head further and it seemed to lull half-attached as he thought. He brought his human thumb up to his lips as he was wont to do in life, but when the thumb reached his fangs he flinched, unable to continue the act as he once would have.

There was something pitying in the inability.

"I suppose the only noticeable thing," L said finally, "Was that they didn't make me watch. I hear they brought in a mirror for you."

Raito's shoulders hunched and for a moment he was as rolled over as L. "Does every shinigami here know my circumstances?" The question was poised, but meant more as an angry statement.

L didn't answer. Instead he asked, "Raito-kun, do you want to know the rest? Why I chose this and yet didn't choose to kill you?"

Raito wanted those answers very much. He was still on guard but he nodded for L to speak on.

"Don't you know the answer to those questions?" L said.

Confused, Raito could only shake his head. How would he know the answer? He couldn't fathom any reason for L to become a shinigami other than with the intent to kill him. What other reason could there be?

"You don't…do you." L's words were not a question at all, but there was a deeper tone to them, filled with something Raito could only recognize as the same defeat and guilt he felt himself. L's eyes turned down at their corners like a frown, making up for his clown-smile mouth. "I became a shinigami to wait for you, Raito-kun," he said, "Heaven would have been rather boring without you, I think. Who would I have talked to? And if I killed you I wouldn't have been able to see how the story ended. I was more angry with being beaten than at you specifically for the part you played in my death. Though it was disheartening. I wanted so badly for you not to be Kira, Raito-kun. I don't know what I would have done if I had won before dying. I suppose we'll never know…will we?"

Raito didn't know how to reply. L became a shinigami for the…company? He waited for Raito? He sat back and watched, keeping his own hand out of the machine to see what would happen to the story by Raito's power alone?

The whole thing sounded suspiciously like something a _friend_ would do.

Raito wanted to retch, but he didn't think shinigami could do that. "You really…meant it. Didn't you? All that talk of being friends…it wasn't a gag, it wasn't a trick to get me to slip up as Kira. You really…always thought of me as a friend."

L righted his head, holding it straight, and his overly stooped figure seemed to curve into itself all the more. "Had I ever lied to you before?"

"But…but we were playing each other all the time. Tricks, hints, everything."

"I told you I was L. I told you I thought you were Kira. I always told you the truth, even with all the games we played to catch each other. In the end, I didn't know for certain until my death that you really were Kira, and you still don't know my name."

"There!" Raito jumped, pointing one of his talons at L's chest, "Your name. You never told me your real name. That's the same as a lie."

"Raito-kun," L said, and his tone dripped with disappointment, "The truth of that was that I could not tell you my real name out of necessity, for my own safety. I never gave you a false name without you knowing it was false. It is not the same as lying. An outright lie never once left me towards you. I did not want you to be Kira, though I believed it even when the evidence suggested otherwise. And I did consider you my friend, my first-ever friend, Raito-kun. That feeling has not once changed, even after death. Otherwise," he crooked his neck again, "You would have died years ago."

There was no logic for this. "You…still think of me as a…friend? But…I killed you."

L raised one of his human fingers like a teacher about to correct. "Actually—"

"Rem killed you," Raito interrupted, shaking his head in dismissal, "But it was still me. I caused it. I forced her into it. Her character made it impossible for her to let you live. It was my fault. When you died I…" A flash of his own expression looking down in evil triumph, as he knew it must have, and of L's expression as he died, shocked and devastated, passed through Raito's vision. "God," Raito choked, "How can you call me your friend after…what I did, after everything I did? I…I deserve this, don't I…"

Staring down at the gnarled claws of his hands, Raito felt himself shaking, trembling beneath every layer of leather. He was dead, he had failed, and he was being punished for it in the most fitting, awful way, proving he had been in the wrong. He could deny it, but the gods would be against him, the gods of death and whatever others existed. This was what he deserved.

He did not deserve L's friendship.

As before, though Raito sobbed, no tears came. His stretched and deformed body shook and nothing came of it. L was right. Raito could take his new Death Note and continue his work as Kira without any hindrance. Surely, that is what the shinigami of this world expected. That is what L expected as he tried to shove the Death Note back into Raito's hands. But the lure of that was gone. Not only because Raito could no longer rule as a god over the world he might create, but because he saw, finally, what his mission had done to him, and it crashed on him like a wave.

When his memories came back to him in the helicopter that day, he did not lose the memories of his time without memories. He remembered not remembering and it was that he had to fight against to continue his work. He had to forget that he had hoped he wasn't Kira, that he had started to like L and think of L as his friend. He had to forget that he thought differently because circumstances were different. With his memories back he had to fight to think like Kira again, but his plan ensured that would happen. If, with his memories, he had decided to back out, to give up being Kira, he never would have been able to live with himself. His only choice was to become Kira fully again and forget forcibly all that had happened between.

Raito wished he had dropped the Death Note that day. God, how he wished it. More than he could ever wish to have never picked the Death Note up in the first place, he wished he had dropped the Death Note when his memories flooded back in the helicopter. If he had he would have freed himself from Kira forever and been able to remain L's honest friend.

Now that chance was beyond gone. He had forfeited his chances long ago. He mourned them now and sobbed on tearlessly because of it, but there was nothing he could do about it but live as a shinigami in retribution.

More than ever, Raito longed to retch, to purge himself of his own filth, but even that was denied him.

When a pale white hand appeared in Raito's vision to cover the black claws he was staring at as he shook, Raito's first instinct was to flinch, to jump, anything. But he couldn't move. He looked up and the few feet that had separated him and L were gone. The black-eyed shinigami was right there, close enough for Raito to count teeth, and his human hand was warm against the hard black of Raito's claws.

"This is all I wanted from you, Raito-kun. Not revenge. I hoped you would find yourself again before your aspirations resulted in your death, but you were too stubborn for that. I am happy, however, that you have found yourself now. I…" The twitch of L's stretched lips made Raito believe the smile, at least in part. "I missed you," L said.

Something swelled inside of Raito and he almost embraced the shinigami before him, but he knew better. The touch of L's hand on his was probably more active physical contact than the reclusive genius had displayed in years, outside of the pair's brawls. In a way that simple touch of skin _was_ L's form of a hug. Raito could feel it as if the other's arms were actually around him. It made him long even more for tears.

He was dead after all; there was no more room for regrets or feeling foolish. He couldn't have Heaven, but he could have something more than a lonely shinigami's life. He could have companionship. L was offering it to him without asking anything else, even after everything Raito had done.

"What do we do now?" Raito asked, and though he had thought he was done with feeling foolish, those words sounded so young and pitiful, he felt it anyway.

L removed his hand and replaced it with the other, holding the Death Note over Raito's claws for him to take. "You'll want this."

Raito was hesitant. His trembling was subsiding and he stared at L in confusion. "Why? After all this you want me to use that thing? Isn't that hypocritical?"

"Of course not. We're shinigami." The answer came out so matter-of-factly, Raito actually felt foolish again for asking it. But he was still hesitant.

"But…a hundred years is enough. More than enough. Even if all that waits after those years is…nothing. I don't want to continue Kira's work."

"Is that what you think I want?" L's eyes were wide, more like Raito remembered, and if he stared only at them, he could forget, if only a little bit, that L wasn't the same youthful-faced man with a penchant for nibbling his thumb. "Now, now, Raito-kun, your logic really is failing you. What could we gain by taking lives other than more life for ourselves? I agree that continuing a living as a shinigami would not be desirable, even in your company, so shouldn't we instead be combining our minds to think of a way…out?"

Raito wondered if several years of being a shinigami had driven L mad. "But…there is no out. Either we kill someone to extend their life and die instantly, we kill to extend our own, or we wait for what time we have to run out. What else is there?"

Again, for a moment or maybe more, L's smile was not just a detail of his new form. It was real. "You are lucky, Raito-kun, that I have had these years to experiment."

Raito didn't know what L was talking about but he was more than willing to listen. Even after death he could feel how much he was clinging to life and he didn't want to give that up. If there was a chance, more than wanting to make things right with L, Raito wanted to save them both from this existence. There had to be another way.

L's smile seemed to grow, and even so large it still seemed genuine. He handed Raito the Death Note and finally Raito accepted it. Then, displaying his very human hands for Raito to look at more closely, he leaned in towards Raito and said, "What if _years_ isn't the only thing a shinigami can trade for with the names they write?"

Raito's new, red eyes, glowed in the semi-darkness of the shinigami world. He and L were both shinigami but one thing had not changed.

L was a genius.

tbc...

A/N: Still good? Hope so. I'm thinking two, maybe three more chapters. Yep, I said it would be short. Considering how this is going to end, I will definetely continue with little one shots, however. ;-) Thanks for the reviews, minna.

Crim


	4. L's Plan

PART FOUR

* * *

"Your…hands."

"Quite human, wouldn't you say."

Raito almost didn't believe it. There were parts of him that still resembled his humanity, and he had at first dismissed L's normal fingers and palm because of it. But L was not indicating his hands simply to show off what he had managed to hang onto. He was showing Raito possibility.

He was giving Raito hope.

"You can trade years from the people you write in the Death Note for…the appearance of being human?" Raito breathed the words, his gruffer voice halting on several of them in the effort to speak.

L's head tilted once more and his smile, forever stretched wide, twitched with the semblance of something real. "More than that. I believe, judging from my first experiment, that the transformation is not merely cosmetic." L's eyes, another part of him so utterly _him_, widened in their fervor. "Names, those stolen years, can be traded for humanity itself, Raito-kun. Piece by piece. My eyes were my own already. But my hands, these were granted from just one life taken."

The swell in Raito's chest that had begun to grow and spread like gentle threads within him sunk again into the bit of his hollow stomach. "You…" It was a harsher truth than L's countenance. "You…killed? _You_? You took a life with the Death Note for _hands_? The great L, Ryuuzaki, the best detective ever known who wielded justice like a sword took lives as easily as—"

"As you did?" L finished.

Raito did not hesitate in making his response. He had always been at terms with his decisions and state of being. Even believing now that he had been in the wrong does not change that he can look at what he was and accept it. "Yes," he said, "You're…you're _you_. You would never stoop to Kira's level."

"Ah, but you speak of the L, the Ryuuzaki you knew in life. The human being. I am shinigami now. Mortal rules no longer apply." As if to emphasize this, L shifted on his clawed feet with their Pan-like curves and pawed at the ground. "Justice? It is my nature to use the Death Note, Raito-kun, as it is yours. Justice is not the same for us as it once was."

Raito's mouth closed as quickly as it had opened in protest. L's logic was perfectly sound as always; Raito was the one unwilling to see things clearly. Shinigami did not murder as humans do. Taking lives was their nature. But as much as Raito tried to convince himself of that, the idea of L joining him as a killer was startling.

Looking up abruptly as a thought occurred to him, Raito narrowed his newly glowing red eyes on L's hands and moved that gaze slowly up to the former detective's face.

"Only your hands…" he said, mostly to himself. Then he straightened, his shoulders pushed back as far he could manage with his newly curved form, and said, "If you figured all this out before, why only your hands? It's been years, Ryuuzaki. You should be entirely human by now."

"You forget what I have already told you."

The space between Raito's eyes crinkled, since he no longer had a full nose to scrunch in concern, as he waited for the rest of L's explanation. The recluse always was one for dramatic pauses, like an elementary school teacher hoping her student would discover the answer for themselves.

"You, Raito-kun," L said, "I was waiting for you. I didn't want to disappoint you by having nothing to offer, but I didn't want to be that far ahead of you, either. It really would have been no fun at all if I saw the end to this before your arrival."

Again, Raito was stunned. All this for him. From L. His…enemy? But then L had been telling him for some time now that he considered him a friend. Raito's entire world was spinning on a new axis. He was a shinigami, dead, and meant to spend eternity, or at least one hundred years, with his arch rival. Now, that rival practically calls him brother and wants to bring him in on a plan to regain their humanity.

The only question left is how much Raito is going to trust L and whether or not he wants what is being offered. To use the Death Note again after what it did to him. It is because of the Death Note that he is now what he has become, why his father died prematurely, why he lost the one friend he might have had.

Might have had and yet still can.

Against all better judgment, Raito's subconscious, even the most conscious part of him to be honest wanted to cling to this promise for something more, especially through L. He had been shocked to know he was L's first friend, but isn't it also fair to say L was his? He was always sizing the rest of the world up and finding it unworthy. Only L can compare to him. Only L can give the kind of companionship he has always sought.

And he wants that. Even if he again became a killer. Even if Kira would be a part of his life until he died…again.

"What next?" he said, looking at L resolutely.

The clown-smile on L's face twitched, though what it wanted its true expression to be was not entirely clear. "How quickly do you want to be free? How easily can you kill? Next, Raito-kun, is to begin our transformations. But that requires the use of these." L tapped one of his perfect, human fingers against Raito's Death Note. "Are you willing?"

Raito had already decided on the answer. He wondered if he would curse the choices he had made until the end of time. At least with this, even if he would be returning to those mistakes, he was being active. Only in action can something be achieved.

L's black eyes were pools like that unfathomable darkness Raito had passed along with the blinding light, and yet he trusted the darkness in L. He cherished it because it was the only darkness likened to his own.

"Yes," he said, "I am willing."

-----

Raito walked alongside L through the barren landscape. Miles in every direction stretched around them. Occasionally they could see other shinigami lying down in sleep, watching portals down into the human world, and gambling for what Raito considered nothing but bits of bone. What did they do with their winnings, he wondered. He never wanted to be what they had become. He marveled at how L seemed immune to the pull of sedentary living.

But then he remembered L was not. For the past several years L had been like some of these shingami, simply watching Raito from a portal and waiting for the end of the story to unfold.

As they walked they remained a good distance away from the shingami they could see. If they strayed too close it was inevitable that one of them would recognize the great Kira and comment. Raito did not want to hear mockery or praise. He just wanted to be free of this punishment, though he doubted he deserved what L was offering. He followed for the company and because he believed he owed this to the other man.

Man. They weren't men. They weren't anything really. Even to call themselves shinigami seemed as foreign and wrong as to call them heroes. He knew, even today, that some of the people in the human world below thought of Kira as a hero. A savior.

It made Raito's stomach flip. Misa could call him a hero if she wanted, Raito didn't care. He cared as much for her opinion as he did the opinion of these taunting shinigami.

And then Raito tripped in his step. Misa.

"Ryuuzaki."

"Mm?"

"When Misa dies she'll come here too won't she?"

L stopped, a few paces ahead of Raito now, and slowly turned on his strange feet. His face was expressionless save the smile that would never fade. "You would assume as much, but you are more special a case than you may think."

"What do you mean?"

Shaking his shoulders in something like a shudder, L considered this and the shroud of white over his frame trembled around him. "Misa loved you. In her own way. She loved Kira for avenging her parents' death. It is her motivations that absolve her. You, however, were seeking to better the world so that you could rule it. Playing God is not looked on kindly by…gods."

It didn't quite make sense. "Then Mellow? He isn't here either?"

Raito knew that smile couldn't be anything but a smile; he had known Ryuuku's long enough to understand that. And yet the curve changed anyway and Raito knew there was a hesitation in L's following words that almost sounded sad, and his smile betrayed it.

Perhaps L saw something of himself in Mellow and Near after all.

"Mellow," L said, looking at the ground in front of Raito's feet, "Mellow chose Hell."

Raito gaped as L turned from him and began walking the path they had been heading. L said it with finality but there was emotion there that surprised Raito. L may not have thought of Mellow as a friend, but the chocolate bar fiend was not the non-entity everyone else seemed to be in L's life.

Memories of when Watari died rose to Raito's mind. L had been calm but clearly affected. Raito was probably the only one who noticed the subtle nuances that gave L's true feelings away.

Raito almost didn't want to ask. "And what about—"

"Your no longer faithful lackey?"

Raito supposed he deserved that. He nodded. He had to summon his wings and hover to keep up with L's Pan-feet.

"He is still alive," L said, "In prison and likely to be executed. He will be given a choice, I think, though I do not know what his decision will be. If it bothers you then we should be swift. It is possible we could be human before his sentence is carried out."

"And what then? What happens to humans in the shinigami world?"

Raito nearly bumped into L's back when the other shinigami stopped. L did not turn to face Raito but did not appear startled when Raito moved to hover in front of him. Raito was surprised at his own comfort with using his wings since they had frightened him so much when they first appeared. It was freeing in a way, but he used them now out of ease and necessity.

Of course, though L had been brought to a sudden stop by Raito's question, he had an answer for everything. Naturally the great detective had already thought of this.

"Yes, I have been wondering that. My conclusions are inconclusive." Without another word, L stepped past Raito and continued walking.

Raito flew up beside him. "Inconclusive? You don't know what's going to happen?"

"I have theories."

"Theories? These are our lives!"

"Theories are better than guesses. It is likely we will experience one of several outcomes. We will become human and be sent immediately into reincarnation. We will become human and start over with the choice between this world and Heaven, or in your case you will simply be transformed back into a shinigami without any say."

Raito's eyes flashed and he bared fangs he wasn't used to yet as he prepared to speak, but was cut off as L spoke on.

"We will be human and therefore vulnerable to the shinigami here. Or…we will be human but capable of staying where we are and choosing our own destiny. Clearly I am hoping for the latter."

Raito couldn't believe this. He was tempted to retract his belief that L was still a genius. "Hoping? You don't know what will happen and the outcome you are hoping for isn't even tangible? Able to choose our own destiny? If we're human but stuck here, where can we go? What can we do?"

"It is possible we could use the portal to return to the human world and therefore come back to life, as it were."

"Ryuuzaki—"

"But if not, if we are stranded, there are places beyond this barren wasteland that may prove of interest to us."

Such a possibility had not occurred to Raito. Something in this world, a world of death, of shinigami, not made of empty, dead land? "Where?" he asked, and he tried not to notice that the way he hovered on black wings was very much like Ryuuku used to hover alongside him. "Have you seen these places?"

L looked around with a swoop of his neck that looked anything but natural. "Mm, not personally. The other shinigami have stories. None have been there themselves, but they assure me there is another land connected to their world."

"A land of what?"

L did not response.

Knowing L as Raito did, he recognized that silence was one of L's ways of saying he didn't have an answer. "You don't know. We could be doing this for nothing. We could end up worse than we are."

As before, L stopped abruptly. Since Raito had been beside him it was easier this time for Raito to stop as well. L looked at Raito and unexpectedly a pink tongue darted out to swipe at a small portion of L's large lips. "Years, Raito-kun," he said, "I have gone years now without my tea, or chocolate, or a piece of cake. This may seem frivolous to you, but I am certain you can think of your own equivalent. Can you honestly say existing as we are in a world like this is not already the worst we can come to?"

Raito thought he would get sick of feeling like a fool. L always managed to do that to him, in life and now. Raito would not miss sweets or food really. He would miss other things, like wind on human skin as he walked, the sound of his sister humming, his mother's smile, the assurance of a future, any future.

L was right. Crazy perhaps in a strangely logical way, but right.

Without waiting for a response, L continued a few more steps and finally crumpled into a heap in front of an unoccupied portal. It sat on the ground like a television, showing the human world according to its watching shinigami's desires.

When L looked back at Raito and gestured with his human hand for Raito to join him, Raito did so with confidence. He sat and the two stared forward at the apparent screen. Raito was mesmerized and he did not know how to answer at first when L's voice drifted to him.

"So," L said, "Who shall be the first sacrifice?"

tbc...

A/N: You're lucky I had that long train ride. :-) Sorry for the delay, and for those crossover fans waiting for more in "What Happened..." I plan to have a new part up before Xmas. Thanks for sticking with me. I'm glad you all are enjoying my play with the Death Note boys. There's more to come. At least two more parts, maybe three, and it will be open for many one shots. Hehe. Have a Happy Holidays if this story isn't updated by then and be safe.

Crim


	5. Surprises

Surprises

* * *

"I thought we were in agreement."

"We are. I don't see a difference."

"There is quite a bit of difference, Raito-kun."

"He'll be dead in two days."

"We said comas."

"Dead is dead, Ryuuzaki. I don't see why we can't—"

"Continue Kira's work?"

Raito did not find the glint in L's eyes even mildly humorous. "No death row. Fine," he said, "So…this one's mine then?"

"As soon as you are ready." L shifted, clearly uncomfortable with how he had to sit with his pan-feet curled to one side. He could not sit in a lanky cross-legged way as Raito was. His hooves would not allow it. "Killing a coma patient who will die sleeping does not rob the person of time spent living. Even your death row friend may find a new way of thinking in the few days he has left."

Raito nodded. He was staring down at his unused Death Note. A blank page. Raito felt quite a bit like that page—empty and waiting. He wanted to be filled, filled with what he wasn't sure, but he felt the hunger to be more than an empty page. The page in the Death Note looked up at him, off-white and worn despite never being written on, and seemed to plead with him.

Write not, it said. Turn back. Nothing good can come of this.

"Ryuuzaki…I don't know if I can do this." Raito could feel the slow turn of L's head, the steady heat of black eyes on his face. "I just…I don't know," he said, unwilling to look away from the Death Note to meet L's stare.

"Someone on death row would ease you more?" L asked.

"It's not that."

"Human conscience then?"

"Hn. We're not supposed to be moralistic, right? We're not even…human…to have a human conscience."

"Ah, but we are doing this with the goal of reclaiming our humanity. Therefore, we should embrace all that is human." L's own human finger pointed to the sky as if lecturing, but his eyes looked to Raito sincerely and Raito found it easier to meet them. "If you need a moment to commune with your morals, Raito-kun, there is nothing hypocritical about that. After all, we chose imminent death coma patients for moralistic reasons. It is only the act of killing that we lend to our shinigami selves."

Raito almost laughed. "Shinigami can kill, but to be more human we choose to kill people who aren't really alive. It makes sense. Still…there's a part of me that does think it would be easier to kill a criminal."

The warmth from L's hand was startling when it touched Raito's shoulder. Raito had turned to face L finally but his attention had been somewhere less tangible. He jumped when L touched him with the intent to soothe.

As a friend would.

"Raito-kun, you cannot make up for the innocents you killed by killing criminals."

If Raito still had human lungs he would have lost his breath. L knew him better than seemed fair, and yet Raito found it as soothing as the dark-haired shinigami's hand.

"I have had years to consider this," L said, "These terminal coma patients were good people while alive, but in truth, they have been dead for some time now. This is the right course, Raito-kun. Trust me."

Not long ago the last thing Yagami Raito would have considered was that he could trust the elusive detective L for anything. Today, however, things had changed. "Ryuuzaki," he said, his mouth twitched up into half a smile, "Can I ask your opinion on something?"

One of the dark eyebrows above L's very L-like eyes rose and the hand L still had on Raito's shoulder twitched as if squeezing in reassurance. "Of course."

"Tell me," Raito said, "Should I start with my hands or this ugly thing on my face they tried to pass for a nose?"

A chuckle escaped L then, short but not awkward as Raito remembered the few laughs he had caught from the detective in life. It was sudden and genuine and had no time for L to ruin it by overanalyzing.

After that it was almost easy for Raito to return his attention to the screen in front of them. Now that he had made up his mind, the screen remained stationary on the image of a young woman, alone and very still in her hospital room as machines beeped and clicked and her life slowly ebbed away. This would not be a heart attack, Raito decided. He had experienced for himself the pain of that, and even if this woman would die in her sleep, he did want to take the chance she might feel something.

It was strange, seeing the woman's name floating above of her head with the number scheme he instinctively understood as a shinigami. The woman would die within the year. He was doing her a favor really. Who in the world would ever choose being a vegetable over a peaceful death?

With L's watchful eyes on his every move, Raito used his shinigami tool, a strange thing not quite like a pen, and began to write, keeping the woman's face in his mind and thinking not of the time he would gain but of a smooth pair of human hands. He understood why L had chosen them first.

He wrote, _Shelly Gunderson_, an American, _dies peacefully in her sleep at 11:25am_, one minute from now. And then he waited.

"I suppose I should warn you."

Raito turned to look at L abruptly. Forty-five seconds had already passed. "Warn me?" Raito said, "You have something to warn me of _now_?"

L shrugged. "There's nothing to be done about it really. Part of the process."

Five more seconds. "What is it?" Raito demanded.

"Oh, only that the transformation is…significantly painful."

Raito's eyes widened, but not because of L's words. Five seconds had come and gone. His eyes went wide with the onset of the pain L had just now confessed about. Raito had to admit, there could be no better way to describe the feeling than _significantly painful._

Falling forward as if he would be sick, Raito clutched as much dry dirt as he could and clawed into the rock below. His breaths came slow and heavy. The pain originated from his hands but felt as if shocks of it were rippling through every part of him. It was constricting, like suffocating from inside his nerves. His initial transformation hadn't been like this. Raito wasn't sure he could stand much more of it.

And then it was over. He hadn't called out. He hadn't had time. It was over quickly though the intensity of it felt much longer than the truth.

Despite the pain, when Raito's eyes focused and his breathing stilled, he looked down and saw that the hands covered in dirt from his desperate clawing were flesh, not black talons. His hands were human.

As much as Raito was marveling over his success, raising his new hands up to the dim light to see every inch of them, he also looked with equal marvel at L.

The large smile on L's face seemed to stretch farther. "You see, Raito-kun," he said, "We may be free of this place in no time at all." He reached into his shroud and from within the folds pulled his Death Note as if from nothing. "Shall we try another?"

Raito flexed his fingers and grinned. "Hell yes."

-----

It was almost a rush. The pain—blinding but brief—and the results, perfect and real and right before their eyes the moment the person they had written in their notes was dead. There were countless terminal patients, catatonic, without the possibility of worthwhile life until their imminent death. It was easy. Soon, Raito began to feel as if he was doing a service. If he was any of these people, he would be praying for death. He almost felt more like an angel than a shinigami.

That thought made Raito's stomach tie up in angry knots. The last thing he wanted was to enjoy this. He could end up worse than he was on Earth, thinking he could better the world by becoming the next euthanasia freak. He certainly didn't want that.

So it was after he and L had each taken five lives that he asked if they could take a break.

"Of course, Raito-kun," L said, "It is rather exhausting. Shinigami do not need to sleep, but they can, and perhaps it would be best of we rested."

Raito was grateful. He was so pleased with what they had accomplished so far, he didn't mind if they waited a few hours before continuing. As of now he had his hands, arms, legs, feet, and what he referred to as his pelvis, which turned out to change both the back and front of that area, though not noticeably to anyone but Raito. A few of L's comments about that Raito almost took as barbs. L apparently found it amusing that one of the first things Raito wanted human again was his manhood.

L, adding to his hands, now also had his feet, arms, legs, and "pelvis" having taken Raito's lead, and since he took one more life before Raito called for a break he also had his hair. Raito barbed him a bit about that, but L assured his friend that it was in no way a superficial choice. He just hated the feel of hair so fair down his back. Raito didn't bother arguing.

"What do you do to pass the time here?" Raito asked. He was tired from the transformation but didn't feel like sleeping. He felt like running just to feel his legs and feet as his own again. It felt wonderful to stretch his arms. His limbs weren't so unnaturally long anymore. They were still covered in black leather bindings, but the fabric hung, having excess it didn't before.

L looked thoughtful a moment while considering Raito's question. "I always watched _you_, Raito-kun. Is there someone you would like to check on? Your family perhaps?"

Raito felt sick again. "I…don't know if I could. My mother and Sayu will know by now, won't they? They must know…that I was Kira. I don't think I could handle seeing their reactions. It's because of me…my Dad…" Raito shivered, and if he didn't know better he would think he was cold. Perhaps his new limbs were to blame.

Though Raito doubted they were the only reason.

It wasn't easy to miss the tremor that went through Raito, and L, out of what little tact he had, decided not to press the issue. "Anyone else, perhaps? Friends? Matsuda-san? He will do well for himself, I think. Though it wounded him greatly, having liked you as much as he did."

"No," Raito shook his head, his attention on some unseen point in the distance away from the screen and L's eyes. They were still sitting, more easily now with their human legs. "I don't want to see anyone. Besides, I don't really have friends anymore. Kira made sure of that. All I really had was you. Misa in a way. And Ryuuku I suppose. And he's…" Raito trailed off. He could kick himself.

Ryuuku.

"He killed me. He…killed me." Raito's human hands clenched so tight they were as white as the shinigami skin on his face.

"Ah, yes, Ryuuku. The start of it all, was he not?" L's voice was thoughtful but not taunting. Raito got the feeling the detective had avoided speaking of Ryuuku on purpose. "Do keep in mind, Raito-kun, that any thoughts of revenge would be entirely pointless. He is shinigami, remember."

Of course. And although Raito knew the one way to kill a shinigami, Ryuuku would never fall for it. Raito wondered if he even wanted that. Revenge. It seemed so foolish. Ryuuku told him from the start he was on no one's side but his own and that when the time came for Raito to die it would be Ryuuku writing his name in a Death Note. Ryuuku never lied. Really, Raito had nothing to be angry about.

And yet he still felt betrayed. Ryuuku had been a friend. Clearly, Raito wasn't very good at keeping friends. He reminded himself that he deserved everything that had happened to him right from the beginning. He made the choice to use the Death Note. The fault was his alone. Ryuuku simply dropped a book.

"Have you…seen him?" Raito asked, turning to face L again.

"Ryuuku?" As before, L took his time contemplating. It made Raito consider the benefits and fallbacks of being patient with the detective. Do it once and he thinks he can take his time on everything. "Hmm," L hummed, "I did see him. Right before your own arrival actually. I imagine he came back as soon as you died."

Raito didn't want to know; he _had_ to know. "Did he say anything to you? Did you talk to him?"

"We may have exchanged a word or two."

"Meaning what?"

"Meaning we may have exchanged a word or two."

"Ryuuzaki!" Raito's patience was wearing thin, "What…what did you talk about? You can't keep something like this from me if you expect me to trust you."

L rose from the ground with ease he had yet to display, his new limbs moving with grace Raito would swear the man never had in life. "Did it cross Raito-kun's mind that perhaps you can trust me more for keeping this from you?"

"What?" Maybe the years had driven L madder than he already was. "Ryuuzaki, if you think you're protecting me from something…"

Light shifted in L's eyes as if to answer that that was exactly what he was doing.

"What is it then? What are you protecting me from?" Raito demanded. "What did Ryuuku say?"

L did his best to straighten, but his torso was still shinigami and his hunch prevented him from standing taller. "I will ask Raito-kun to remain calm," he said, which only intensified Raito's need to know what was going on. "It is nothing too terrible, only that…Ryuuku-san…he confessed to me that he had been planning for this outcome from the beginning."

This time Raito was certain he felt cold.

"He knew you would fail. He knew you would be punished this way. He knew, Raito, you would become what you are from the moment he dropped his Death Note."

Slowly, Raito rose to join L, though his new limbs felt numb and he hardly knew he was standing save being eye to eye with his friend. "He…said it was chance. He didn't know I was the one who would pick up the book. He couldn't have known."

Laughter, laughter Raito knew well though found chilling now, came from behind him and slightly above. He didn't have to look to know that the soft sound of someone landing behind him was not the arrival of any ordinary shinigami.

Raito turned and met a smile much like L's.

Ryuuku chuckled again. "I always knew you would make a fine shinigami."

tbc...

A/N: Sorry, I've been in Georgia with my sister's new baby all month for those of you patiently waiting for this and possibly for the next part in my Saiyuki fic. I am sorry for the delay, however, and will be back in the saddle from now on. Hope you're still with me.

Crim


	6. Rules

Rules

* * *

If Yagami Raito were not dead already, he would have died again.

"I always knew you would make a fine shinigami."

No. It couldn't be that simple. Ryuuku told him it was chance. Anyone could have picked up that book.

But then, would anyone have acted as Raito had, with such fierce intelligence and agenda? Of course not. No one else would have been worthy of the book, not as Kira was. Ryuuku had been prepared from the beginning. Much as he seemed surprised and excited about Raito's actions, there were moments when something sinister seemed to lurk within the shinigami that otherwise remained hidden. He was just a big, monstrous-looking puppy, Raito once believed. How foolish must he have been to believe that?

Foolish like so many of the people in Raito's life were foolish for believing in him. To say it that way makes Raito cringe to think how much like a shinigami he really was. Throughout everything he and Ryuuku were incredible actors.

Raito stumbled away from the shinigami before him, bumping into L's body and disrupting both of their human feet. L was barefoot and Raito faintly heard the detective hiss as the soles of his feet scraped the ground.

Laughter responded before Ryuuku spoke again. "What could you be afraid of, Raito?" the shinigami grinned, "You're as powerful as I am now. To think how long it took me to find you too. You've come a long way from the palace. Getting good use out of those wings you wanted so much, eh?"

The breath in Raito's still shinigami lungs rose up and caught in his throat.

"You found L too, hmm?" Ryuuku continued, uncaring to Raito's horrified stance and expression, pressed back against L who awkwardly tried to find a place for his hands but couldn't quite get passed his neurotic ways to hold his friend. "Is it a joint effort now?" Ryuuku said, "You have your Death Note and the best possible companions, eh? Are we starting with criminals right off the bat then or getting rid of others first?"

Slowly, Raito's senses started to come back to him, but he still couldn't understand what Ryuuku was talking about. "Criminals…? You…you think just like those other shinigami. You think I'm still Kira, that I want to continue that work? It ruined my life! And…and it was all…because of you…"

It had only been hours, _hours_ since Raito was first made a shinigami and he was still putting together the shattered pieces of himself. He hadn't been able to think straight once. And the time for that was not yet now.

Raito steadied himself and left the safety of feeling L at his back. Ryuuku was just in front of him, daring to look smug and excited about Kira the Shinigami. But that wasn't Raito anymore. He wouldn't let it be. He had lost too much.

And all of it was Ryuuku's fault.

"You knew…how could you have known?!" Raito cried, human hands clenched tight and shinigami eyes glaring blood red, "It was all for nothing. I lost…everything. I could have been like my father. And instead…he died and I didn't even care, and now I'm…I'm this _thing_ like you. But I never wanted this. I am _not_ Kira! You…you ruined everything!"

Indeed, the time for thinking straight was not yet now.

Raito charged forward, throwing his unbalanced weight into Ryuuku with a great scream of fury. His arms and legs were human but his heart pumped blood like hellfire. It didn't matter if this act added up to nothing. He was too angry to care.

And through it all, Ryuuku was still laughing. "Me? You think you can blame me?" Ryuuku said, bowled over onto the ground but not even bothering to fend Raito's attack off. The meager clawing Raito was attempting was doing little more than leave an occasional scratch on Ryuuku's face that quickly healed. "I just gave you a book, Raito. Everything else was because of you."

"No! No, I couldn't have known what would happen! You…you tricked me!"

"Haha! Tricked you? It was chance you picked up the book, Raito. Sure, I dropped it where you could easily find it, and having watched you I knew you wouldn't leave it alone, but the choice was always yours. I just knew the final outcome. I've been around a long time, Raito. You humans are very predictable."

The feebleness of his actions was beginning to catch up to Raito, and his angry clawing started to cease. Soon, he was simply sitting on Ryuuku's chest, crying once again with dry sobs that told the same story. "It…doesn't matter…does it?" Raito said, "It doesn't matter if you planned it, if you singled me out because you knew I'd become Kira. I chose everything."

"And you were very fun to watch too," Ryuuku grinned.

Raito wished he had an apple if only to have something to throw up. "Why? Why me? Why Kira? Why did you want all of that to happen?"

Ryuuku considered this, his smile slightly less taunting as he did so, and said, "I've told you, Raito. You make a fine shinigami. The ones around here are so lazy, they let themselves waste away. But you, I knew you could change the way things are here. Now that you're one of us, the others will see that they can't sit around the way they do. You said it yourself, Raito, as shinigami we have the power to change the human world. Why not use that power to make the world the way we want it? It was your ideals that made me choose you, Raito. And now that you're here, we can really do it." Raito must have been shaking his head even before Ryuuku finished, because the forever-smile shifted as it spoke those final words.

Raito didn't feel like soothing Ryuuku, because even though he knew he could only blame himself, he would never forgive the shinigami for showing him how much of monster he could be.

Moving slowly off of Ryuuku, Raito stood, hovering over his almost-friend. Ryuuku told Raito from the beginning that he was neither on Raito's side nor L's, and yet Raito always considered Ryuuku his closest companion. It wasn't a knife in the back. It was a knife in the heart, right where Raito should have seen it coming.

"I am not Kira," Raito said, "Kira died just the way he should have. From a shinigami. A heart attack. I am paying for his sins and I want nothing more to do with him." Raito's red eyes narrowed into angry slants. "Or you."

L, who had been keeping out of the exchange as he knew Raito would want, nodded to his friend when Raito at last turned towards him to leave Ryuuku behind. But Raito did not get more than one step before he felt claws grab his wrist and he clenched his teeth from the pain.

Pain. The human parts of him could feel pain, though the shinigami could not. That was not a good sign.

"I was going to compliment you on your new look, Raito," Ryuuku said, and a chill shot down Raito's spine because the tone was the same Ryuuku used when telling Raito whose name he really wrote in his Death Note, "But…I don't think I can do that anymore…can I?"

Ryuuku tightened his grip and Raito gasped. Shinigami can touch each other but they cannot hurt each other. Unfortunately, not all of Raito is shinigami anymore.

Panicked, Raito looked forward at L with wild, pain-filled eyes and silently pleaded for help. He hardly expected L to be his white knight but there had to be something they could do. Raito hadn't thought about the reactions from other shinigami should humans suddenly exist in their realm, and he certainly hadn't counted on Ryuuku.

Could he…die again?

"You needn't be cross for being wrong, Ryuuku-san," L said, taking unhurried strides towards the others on his bare human feet, though because his torso was still shinigami his slouch was as severe as ever, "I have had enough time now to get over my own miscalculations. Well, really I was right all along, of course, but to lose is a difficult thing for the prideful. Are you…too full of pride, Ryuuku-san…to admit defeat?"

Perhaps L would make a fine white knight after all. Raito hardly believed the detective was defending him, despite their recent truce. More than anything Raito wanted escape, escape from all of it, but he couldn't have that even in death. L was his only chance.

"Come now, Ryuuku-san," L continued, staring past Raito confidently, though Raito, frozen by such unexpected pain, could not see Ryuuku's face, "You cannot blame Raito for his reaction. Nor can you force him to be what he is not. You were mistaken. That does not change your desires if you wish to pursue them on your own."

A throaty scoff replied to that. "On my own? Where's the fun in that? Raito had all the entertaining ideas. It would just be boring again without him. Besides," and though Raito still could not see Ryuuku he felt the shinigami approach him more closely because a chilling absence of breath struck the back of his neck and made him shudder, "You've been bending the rules. I can smell it. Feel it too. Shinigami aren't allowed to trade lives for anything but years. You've been shinigami a long time now, _L_. You should know that."

Raito's eyes widened but L showed no signs of shock. Could it be? The shrouded shinigami had kept this from him on purpose? As if Raito's punishment were not bad enough, L had risked them angering this world without telling him the consequences?

Facing L as he was, Raito felt for a second time the strange sensation of being stabbed in the front.

"If it's entertainment you want, Ryuuku-san, shouldn't this be enough," L said, raising his human hands that were now attached to human arms, "Raito found many ways to bend and toy with the rules on Earth, why not here? It makes for a much more exciting time, don't you think?"

Ryuuku scoffed again, holding onto Raito's stinging wrist tighter. "I counted on this end. You may have made it more entertaining on Earth, Great Detective L, but here you are just in the way."

Part of Raito was angry at L, furious, thinking he had been betrayed again, but the conviction in L, the determination to help Raito never wavered inside of L's wide dark eyes. It was the same constant stare Raito knew well, only not directed at him for a change but beyond him to protect. That was it. Even L's lies—or rather, well-chosen bits of undisclosed information—had reason. Raito would not normally doubt that all of L's decisions had logic to them, but he realized he still wasn't thinking as straight as he could and putting trust in another was never going to come easy again.

The standstill was becoming grating. Raito could barely feel his wrist now since it had become numb from Ryuuku's hold. He didn't dare move, feeling how close the other shinigami was behind him and not knowing whether or not Ryuuku could actually hurt him.

Meanwhile, L, vacant expression by design, stood only a few feet in front of them, stationary as well, as if waiting for something. If it was for Ryuuku to magically decide to back down, Raito highly doubted that would happen.

"Are you really angry, Ryuuku-san, or just disappointed?" L said, "Disappointment can be overcome after a length of time, you know, and if it is anger then what can be done of that? You can hardly hurt either of us, after all."

Now Raito was beginning to panic. Was L goading Ryuuku? Raito knew he could be hurt; he felt it. Maybe L didn't know that information. Maybe L was bluffing. Maybe…

And then Raito knew. Suddenly he just knew as if L had psychically passed the plan to him. It was foolish. Childish even. But at this point, it was still the most logical way to go.

As soon as Ryuuku began to shift, Raito braced himself. "Can't hurt you?" Ryuuku said, still holding Raito's wrist, but more loosely since he was walking around to the side of Raito now to get a fuller look at him, "Wishful thinking for _humans_ in the world of Death." But as much as Ryuuku was grinning and Raito felt fear of him for the first time since the initial sight of him, Ryuuku's eyes had shifted from being pinned on L to forgetting L just long enough for the detective to act.

Raito felt the impact, the sting as his wrist was roughly pulled out of the last of Ryuuku's grip, and then the almost familiar feeling of being weightless as his feet left the ground and he did not immediately slam down into hard rock. He had never seen a shinigami fly as fast as their wings could carry them, but feeling it soon reminded him of the worst of rollercoasters and it was no longer a pleasant sensation.

"You're crazier than you look," Raito said into L's shoulder, not wanting to see if Ryuuku was on their tail or how high up they were flying, "And believe me, that's saying something."

Sideways in L's arms, Raito foolishly thought that the white shroud and bony white wings made L quite the parody of a knight after all.

They flew for some time. L never spoke, but Raito didn't mind. Neither was the type to run from anything but they didn't have much time or much choice. If what they were doing really was against the rules then word would spread quickly now. It had been so easy. The shinigami are spread out in their land, huddled and kept to themselves when not gambling. No one paid them any mind. But now that Ryuuku knew there was no telling how quickly the pair could be found out.

And now Raito also knew something else. They could be hurt. Maybe even killed. What would happen to them then? One of L's many possible outcomes? It could be anything from nothing at all to starting at the beginning, cursed again. It may have been only a few hours since Raito became shinigami, but he was ready to be done with it. Even if that meant playing the coward long enough to get away from Ryuuku.

Raito had to admit though, if it had been him, he wasn't sure if he could have been as reckless as L. Raito had never seen the detective move so fast when not fighting. L wasn't known for dramatic physical acts other than his occasional outburst of kicks that never really got either of them anywhere. Fighting while chained really wasn't the brightest thing they could have thought of.

A chuckle escaped Raito remembering those times. That was when he didn't remember being Kira, when his intentions were genuine, and L really was beginning to become a friend. It was probably the only time either of them acted their age.

"Something humorous, Raito-kun?" L asked, his still gravely voice close beside Raito's ear, "Because I could very well drop you, you know? We're far enough away now that if you wanted to use your own wings I wouldn't grudge you that show of pride."

Raito snorted. Couldn't L just come out and say that he was tired and that Raito should stop being a lazy ass and use his own damn wings? Of course he couldn't. Much as Raito might enjoy hearing something like that, it just wouldn't be L.

Uncurling from L's hold, Raito carefully pushed off and caught his wings on the wind, amazed that they could appear at will as quickly as he thought of them. The pair flew side by side the rest of their trek, Raito always a step behind L, following the detective to a place Raito assumed had been chosen for just this sort of escape. Like himself once upon a time, L always had a plan.

When they touched down the land itself looked no different, but there was not another shinigami in sight. In the distance Raito could see what he only knew how to describe as a change in color. He squinted to see better and asked L what it was.

"That is our destination, Raito-kun. I would have had us come here eventually. It would have been too dangerous to make that journey as complete humans."

L made to sit down but Raito was in no mood to be tactful. He grabbed a handful of L's shroud and tugged the former detective in close. "You liar. You tell me you're being honest, that you've always been honest, and then you keep something like that from me. I thought you wanted to help me."

"I do, Raito. I would be long gone by now if I didn't."

"Then tell me everything. I don't care if your logic says that keeping things from me protects me more. I want to know when something is going on. If you expect me to trust you then that is the least you can give me." Raito understood how hypocritical his words sounded after his time as Kira and how he had lied so expertly to L and many others, but he would not amend his request. They had to trust _each other_ if they were going to accomplish anything.

"I agree with you," L said, unperturbed by the strong grip on the front of his shirt. He looked at Raito, eyes bottomless and large, "I apologize if my logic got in the way of our camaraderie. I am not used to friends. Different rules apply, yes? Logic is not always the best course, even when it seems it is."

The way L needed to analyze everything annoyed Raito somewhat. He often did the same, that was true, but he knew the difference between a situation that required analysis and simple human social skills. "Ryuuzaki, you're applying logic anyway by thinking of it that way. There are no set rules. Every relationship is different. Maybe there will come a time when we need to lie to each to save each others' lives. But I want you to be honest with me anyway, okay?"

L considered Raito's words carefully, released at last from Raito's grip. He shuffled his feet and tried to place his thumb at the crevice of his lips, though it didn't look as it once would have with his mouth stretched so strangely.

When he finally spoke, he tilted his head in question.

"Raito-kun," he said, "Your words are a paradox."

Raito couldn't help but smile. "That's what makes relationships so complicated."

"Ah. I see. Then if I may say so, I am in no hurry to have any more, though I will try my best to adhere to these non-rules in your case, Raito-kun. Complicated as it may be, I enjoy our relationship. If you want honesty, I will tell you everything I know."

'Thanks."

For the first time Raito really felt how alone they were. Not only because there were no other shinigami around but because even if Ryuuku was with them, they would still be alone. L was the only person Raito trusted, and he didn't doubt the same was true in reverse. They were all each other had.

"So, we don't have much time."

"I do not think so. We will have to be swift." L sat down in the dirt and took out his Death Note, and Raito watched as a viewing screen rose up out of the ground for their use. L easily took notice of his companion's amazement. "It is risky but necessary. To summon one as I have may alert others to our presence here. But we will need it in order to find victims. Raito," L stressed the name, and with the honorific left out, Raito knew to listen more carefully, "Are you prepared to continue? There really is no going back."

There was only one answer to that question and Raito didn't feel the need to express it. Instead, he sat down beside L and took his Death Note out as well. "My turn, wasn't it?" he said, and with the briefest of shared smiles they began the process of finishing their work.

tbc...

A/N: I'm trying to take turns posting this and my Saiyuki fic. Hope you liked this part. Things will be wrapping up quickly, but will leave things open for many a one shot. I expect another two chapters. Yes, I know, the sadness! But those one shots will be alot of fun when I have the time. I can tell you, you have no idea what I have planned.

I finally posted a picture of what these two look like as shinigami. Please go to DeviantArt. My name is CrimsonDomingo. You can search for me and my work by typing in the search box by:CrimsonDomingo and it will be the newest pic. Comments are appreciated. Also, my boyfriend drew me a Death Note comic for Valentine's Day that is also up. It is the most recent of my favorites. Thank you!

Crim


	7. A Human Condition

A Human Condition

* * *

Perhaps an hour had passed, neither could be certain, but Raito and L had been systematically altering their shinigami bodies the entire time, taking turns as to who used there death note when. Together they had rid the world of several coma patients who would never have woken up. Neither felt righteous about that, or justified, but they did not feel remorse for it either. After all, they were shinigami, and they were simply doing what shinigami did.

Finally, each of them had only a single name left to write before their bodies would be wholly human. L still had his stretched mouth, which surprised Raito since the former detective so often tried to place his thumb at the crevice of his lips and failed because the lips were so awkwardly large. In turn, Raito had left his eyes for last, which L said surprised him because shinigami eyes are tied so closely to a curse.

L was thankful then that it was Raito's turn. If L became fully human first he would be open to the perusing of those shinigami eyes. It no longer mattered if Raito could see certain things about him, but L considered it a matter of pride.

"This boy…he won't die for three years yet. He's only eight years old. His parents won't let him go." Raito's voice was somber. He could feel L's eyes on him, calculating, gauging perhaps if he believed Raito's empathy for the boy was sincere. If L were questioning him, Raito could hardly blame the other man. Raito still had a hard time trusting himself.

Still, he could not imagine a better mercy than to take this boy as his final life, and he hoped it would be the last life he ever took.

_Emery Schuldaussen. Dies peacefully in his sleep at 12:01am._

Raito wrote the date, waited for the time to pass midnight, and felt at the moment of the boy's death a surge in his eyes that blinded him with pain. His head throbbed, but he did not call out. Every part of him he had traded in for humanity had come with the price of pain and he knew he deserved every twinge. He accepted it now, and when the pain passed, he opened his eyes, seeing in the reflection of the monitor his own fully human face.

If not for the wrappings of leather that hung awkwardly on his form now, he would be himself again. Yagami Raito, champion of Justice. That thought soured in Raito's mind immediately and he thought better of thinking that way again.

"Only one thing left now, Ryuuzaki," Raito said, "At least we know being human doesn't backfire and send us to the beginning again." Raito would have smiled if he wasn't still wary. What were their plans after L became human with him?

L finished more quickly, choosing an older woman in England who had several months to go before her death. He did not call out either when his clown smile shrunk to its usual width and color. L's clothing hung on him even more than Raito's did—the large white shroud and ratted jeans. He was also barefoot which would be harsh on this rocky land.

They stood. The monitor faded back into the black earth, presumably because there were no longer any shinigami in the area. Neither spoke for some time and Raito couldn't help but wonder what L was thinking. As always, the detective looked impassive and calm, his black eyes wide and staring. The strange thing was Raito no longer felt the way he used to under that stare. It was no longer judging him as it had on earth, merely looking with curiosity and finding more than a murderer now. Finally, L could look at a friend who considered him a friend in return.

Raito didn't dwell on how their friendship had grown out of death, on earth as well as in this wasteland.

"Well?" Raito said at last, comfortable enough in his skin now and anxious to be on their way, "What now?"

"Now we begin," L replied.

"Begin what?"

"Our journey."

Raito was not in the mood for L's less than forthcoming answers. "Journey where?" he pressed.

This time his answer came in the form of an outstretched arm, pointing towards that strange change of color distant on the horizon. It was the land beyond them. But as far as Raito could see, there was nothing out there but a vast black desert of nothing, except that held a slightly different shade than the one they were already in.

"You don't even know what's out there, do you?" he accused, stalking a few steps ahead of L to look out at the land before them that he did not see as a bright and shining future. "I don't even feel any different. I mean, I feel…human, but nothing's changed, not really. You have to have more of a plan than this?"

But even as Raito was talking, L swept passed him, walking swiftly, hands shoved into large pockets, shroud trailing to the ground behind him, and shoulders only slightly hunched now instead of the inhuman curve they had had when L was still shinigami.

"Hey!" Raito called, but L did not turn around, "Ryuuzaki! Ryuuzaki, come back here!" The white and black form still trudged on and almost seemed to be swallowed up. Raito felt a surge of panic rise in him at the thought of being alone in this place. It wasn't only that he didn't want to be alone, he realized, but that he didn't want to be without L. "Wait!" he called, "Wait up!"

L's pace slowed though he did not even tilt his head as Raito ran to catch up and match his step. Raito felt a stab of shame strike his gut. He had offended L. He had sworn to trust him and yet he had still shouted dissention and disbelief. The recluse was socially inept anyway; Raito didn't want to alienate him.

"Ryuuzaki," he said, "Look, you've probably saved my life, and after I went out of my way to make sure yours was taken. There's no way either of us could know what's going to happen now. The best we can do is…what we are doing. There should be no blame put on you if this isn't easy. So…I'm sorry, okay? I trust you."

L continued walking, but his eyes looked to the side and met Raito's with a sigh of camaraderie. Raito would almost swear the detective smiled a little at him too. "Thank you, Raito-kun," L said, "I appreciate that. I trust you as well." And L turned forward again as if no tension had passed between them.

Raito supposed he could get used to a friend who was so quick to forgive, but it didn't change that he hoped to in turn be a friend who didn't need forgiveness so often.

Matching each other's pace, the pair walked on in companionable silence for several minutes. Another hour may have passed even, but the land in front of them had not changed. They had reached the change in color, they were surrounded by it now, but the land was still barren and rocky with no salvation in sight.

Hoping to keep their spirits up, Raito decided a conversation would be far more desirable than all this quiet. "So," he said, "Do you really think nothing can follow us?"

"Hmm? Do you worry for Ryuuku-san, Raito-kun?"

Raito huffed. "Maybe. We're renegades now, Ryuuzaki. All shinigami could be after us for all we know."

L shook his head, his dark eyes trained on the path before them. "No shinigami ever travel into this land. I can assure you of that."

"So…what exactly are we looking for out here?"

A tilt of his head proved that L was thinking over this particular question with care. Raito tried to stay focused and await an answer, but there was something so strangely childlike in L now, more so than usual, with the shroud hanging off him so large and his poor bare feet treading carefully over the rocky ground.

L did not appear to notice Raito's staring, or if he did, he made no comment about it.

"Logically, something must exist," L said, "If the shinigami do not partake in it, then it is also logical to assume we are at least safer heading in the direction we are going then staying where we were. Do you not agree?" L turned his head further to regard Raito and captured the eyes that had been staring so intently.

Raito felt foolish in his bindings of leather suddenly, now that L's eyes were on him. "We could have tried the portal," he suggested lamely, remembering that Ryuuku had taken a portal to Earth when he left the shinigami world.

L turned his head forward again. "I doubt we would have made it," he said.

"True." Raito was feeling awkward now. He realized he didn't really know L and as much as he enjoyed the _detective's_ company, the company of the _man_ was more difficult to deal with. "Listen, can we at least think of something to pass the time. I'll go crazy with all this walking and nothing else to do."

There was a brief pause before L replied, "I'm afraid I don't have any cards with me, Raito-kun."

Smart-ass. "Just talk, will you?" Raito said, "Talk. About anything. You're so damn quiet when you're not explaining something and being technical. Will you just, I don't know, tell me something."

"Something?" L repeated, questioning though, and not as a sarcastic pun.

"Something about you, the great detective L," Raito said.

"Such as?"

"Anything, I don't know, just…hey." Raito stopped—his speech and his walking. He stared ahead at L and gaped. "I still don't know your name," he realized.

L stopped as well and when he turned to look back at Raito his expression was very strange, like nothing Raito could have ever remembered from the man before. L looked embarrassed.

As if recognizing that he had been found out, L turned quickly again and began walking.

"Ryuuzaki!" Raito called, hurrying to catch up again, "Come back! What is it? Come on, you can tell me now. It's not like it matters anymore. What's the big deal?"

Even when Raito caught up to him, L did not respond. The detective was walking with a swift pace, his posture more hunched, and his eyes seemed more focused on the ground that where L was going.

Raito had no intention of giving up on this. What did it matter if he knew L's name now? He couldn't use it against him. He was just curious. So he continued to stare at the other man as they walked, waiting for L to say something.

Finally, and very quietly, L did. "There is no reason for me not to tell you, Raito-kun," he said, "except that I…am not particularly fond of it."

L, worrying over vanity? Raito was stunned. "It can't be all that bad," he scoffed, "Normally you go by a single letter."

This comment rewarded Raito with a swift look that could almost have been considered a glare if L's eyes knew how to narrow.

"Come on," Raito tried, "We'll make it a game to pass the time. I ask something; you answer. Then you can ask something of me. And no matter what it is, we have to tell the truth."

When L looked at Raito this time his eyes were large as ever and his mouth almost hung slack.

"What?" Raito asked.

L was genuinely surprised. "That…is surprisingly juvenile, Raito-kun."

Sometimes even Raito forgot he was only twenty-three, and when the whole Kira mess began he was still just a teenager. He had never been much of a…child. He was always so grown-up, his mother would say, always so mature. Clearly, that way of living hadn't gotten him anywhere other than where he was.

"I spent the last six years as an otherworldly executioner on earth. I skipped the juvenile stage. Aren't I entitled to a little goof off time now?" Because to be honest, Raito really liked the sound of that.

L still looked amazed. "I didn't think you would be interested in such things." he admitted.

For the rest of Raito's life—unlife, at least—he would have to remember the awful things he did. Sometimes the simpler things are all a person has to get over regret. That L didn't seem to understand upset Raito. "Just because you had grown up by age ten, dear genius L, doesn't mean—"

"I didn't say _I wasn't_ interested." L broke in, sounding rather indignant actually, which startled Raito far more than Raito's behavior could have possibly startled L. The former detective hardly seemed the type to want to goof around. It made Raito grin despite himself. "Good," he said, "Then we can both be juvenile for a while and play this game. Now tell me. What is your name?" Raito knew he had L caught.

L knew it too, but he didn't try to back out. Staring forward again as they continued their trek, L quietly said one single word. A name. "Lawliet."

Raito couldn't be sure he heard right. "What?"

"Lawliet," L said again, louder this time and hurriedly, living up to his expression of embarrassment, "It's Lawliet. That's my real name."

"Lawliet?"

"Yes."

Raito thought that over. "That's not Japanese."

Apparently, this was not the reaction L expected. He looked at Raito incredulously. "And who ever said I was Japanese?"

Please, Raito thought. "You look it for one. And you speak flawlessly. You're also older than me by more than you let on, but you still look like you could pass for a high school student."

L might have feigned being offended by that observation, but he simply turned back to the path, "Well," he said, "I wasn't raised in Japan."

"No? Then where were you raised?"

This question returned the small smile to L's lips, and this time Raito was sure it was there and not just a trick of the light. "Rules, Raito-kun," L said, "I believe it is your turn to answer a question of mine."

Quick to the core, Raito thought. He didn't mind. If the game continued, he would soon know everything about the detective, and that thought alone made the endless path ahead of them seem all the more manageable. He gave L a nod and awaited the other man's question.

"Hmm. I know quite a bit about you already, you know," L said, taking his right hand out of his pocket and successfully fitting his thumb into the crevice of his lips. For a moment he was so pleased at this success that he talked around his thumb quite happily. "I did have surveillance on you for quite some time," he said.

Raito remembered. "I know."

"You did?" L's thumb dropped to his chin.

"Of course I did."

"Is that why you had that…magazine then. For show?"

"Magazine?" Raito wasn't sure what the detective was talking about at first. He thought back to the time he was under surveillance all those years ago, and then it hit him. Magazine. He had purchased a dirty magazine from the convenient store and read it in his room.

What a strange thing for L to ask.

"Is that your question?" Raito said.

L nodded.

"Alright then. Yes, it was for show. I never buy those things. Waste of time. If I want to deal with a girl, I can get a real one."

A strange shadow crossed L's face then, marring his usually benign appearance, but it lasted only a moment and Raito wondered if he had imagined it even more than he sometimes doubted L's smiles.

"Okay…so my turn again. How old are you exactly?" Raito asked. He had already brought the subject up and now he was curious. He had always doubted L was really an entering college student back then.

"I assume you mean the age I was when I died, since I have not aged since then."

L and his details. Raito tried not to roll his eyes. "Yes."

"Then…twenty-five. Only two years older than you now, it would seem."

Once again, Raito was stopped in his tracks. He had assumed the detective was a few years older than him, maybe twenty when they first met, but if L was twenty-five when he died then, "You were twenty-three? You're six years older than me? I can't believe it."

When L slowed his step and stopped this time, he turned with what could almost be perceived as annoyance at having to halt their trek yet again. "Again, Raito-kun, we are only two years different now. I am not so much older than you anymore. Besides, does it make a difference? Does it change anything?"

"Well," and Raito couldn't help but smirk a little, "It does mean someone much younger than you outwitted you. Several times."

A new shadow crossed L's face, one darker, but gone just as quickly. "Indeed," was all he said, and he turned back and continued walking.

Great. Raito had to go and make things tense between them again. He knew L was a sore loser; he didn't have to press the man's buttons. He just couldn't help the small swell of pride at how he as a mere teenager had matched wits against a much older and experienced genius. Of course, if he could go back, he would have rather been found out long before things got as bad as they did.

Hurrying to catch up to L, again, Raito decided there were still some bridges that needed burning. "I'm not smarter, you know?" he said, tugging at a lose strap of leather hanging off his hip, "Just luckier. I knew things you didn't. I had advantages that made it impossible for you to win. It was only later, when I got sloppy, overconfident, that I was beaten, and not because Near was anywhere near as close to catching me as you were. Your death is what gave the facts they needed, after all. Besides…you always knew. You never doubted it. And I _grinned_ at you as you died…"

It was L who stopped this time. He stopped and waited for Raito to notice. Raito looked back and saw that familiar blank expression that slowly turned into yet another small smile. Perhaps years with that clown smile had made it easier for L to curve up his lips. "Still regretting, Raito-kun?" he said, "Don't. I am not upset. I learned to let go of regrets long ago. I am happy you are here. That we are here together. So tell me…when you were a child what did you dream of being when you grew up?"

Raito was confused at first as L caught up to him and then continued walking. And then he remembered. Their game. It was L's turn to ask a question.

Hurrying to catch his companion, yet again, Raito grinned as he answered, "A fighter pilot. What about you?"

-----

Several hours had passed now and no end to the slightly lesser desert was anywhere in sight. L and Raito had continued their game the entire time, but even they grew tired, much as they enjoyed the conversation and learning more about one another.

The game had shifted early to much more trivial things, such as favorite ice cream flavors and J-rockers they secretly wished they could use their death notes on. Of course, neither had a death note anymore, having left them back in the dirt beside the monitor that faded into the ground. And they were happy to leave them there.

Currently, L was in the middle of answering one of Raito's many inquiries.

"It is a silly question."

"Aren't they all? Come on, I'm only curious."

"Well, I suppose if I had to choose…perhaps the animal I am most like is a cat."

Raito looked L up and down as if to say, you are far too scruffy looking to be a cat.

"A stray cat?" L amended, because contrary to popular opinion he was not unaware of his awkward appearance, he simply didn't care what others thought of him when he was comfortable and happy for it.

"A stray cat," Raito considered, "It suits you. Smart, sociable only when it chooses to be, prefers treats to any real sustenance, stubborn to the core, and…hn." Raito had to hold a hand to his mouth to keep form giggling at the thought.

"What?" L questioned.

Their walking had become so habitual now they hardly noticed their legs continued to move as they spoke. Raito shook his giggles away and shrugged, "I was just thinking…that, like a cat, you…" pausing, Raito turned to look at L. Nothing mattered anymore. L knew what stuffed animal Raito slept with as a child, knew what anime characters he most admired and used to dream of marrying someday. Each of them knew the others' most intimate and ridiculously childish truths, so it no longer mattered if they were just a little bit more honest, "You," Raito said, "have this amazing way of burying inside of someone until they have no choice but to hate you…or…feel like they can't imagine life without you."

They had each said so many startling things by now that L no longer saw a need to stop. He walked on, but turned to look at Raito with an expression of pure curiosity. "Funny," he said, "I was going to say the very same thing about you. Do you really think that is a cat-like trait?"

Raito had to laugh. "Maybe," he said.

As they walked onward they were still looking at each other and therefore it was that much easier for L to misstep. He gave a small cry as his foot hit a particularly jagged rock and stumbled forward, able to stop himself from falling, but able to avoid stubbing his toe. He had to stop now and Raito stopped with him. L shook his foot helplessly, gritting teeth against the pain. Raito had to wonder if this happened to L often, since the detective walked around all the time without shoes.

Without shoes. Raito looked carefully at L's bare feet and saw how much damage their walking had caused. The ground was hardly suitable for skin; black rock was their pathway, after all, not anything smooth or worn down. L's feet were bruised, bloody, and full of black smears. Raito couldn't imagine how the man had managed to walk all that way without making his discomfort known.

"We should stop," Raito said, stepping closer to L and taking a quick look around that may have seemed useless since they had seen no signs of life, but was very important to Raito when the two of them were so vulnerable, "Our bodies are human now. We need to rest. Your feet look awful and I'm exhausted. There's no way to tell time so…maybe we should just sleep for awhile and continue on after we wake up."

"Do you think that wise?" L questioned.

Raito gave the former detective a calculating look. "You're the one who said we couldn't be followed. There's nothing out here. We just make sure we sleep facing the way we're headed so we don't get turned around, and lie down for a few hours. Besides, it's freezing. I hadn't noticed how cold it is with all our walking but we should probably warm up as well."

"Warm…up?" L had since stopped shaking his damaged toe and looked at Raito as if his companion had suddenly changed shape.

"Yeah. You're a smart guy, right? Body heat? Hello? We could freeze to death otherwise. Maybe. How can we know, I guess, but I'd rather not risk it. We should fall asleep close together. Better if skin's touching too. Take off your shirt." Raito, in turn, began to unwind as best he could some of the bindings over his chest.

L didn't move.

"We can cover some of the holes in your shroud with my leather and make a kind of blanket, and then we'll combine body heat from our chests. Our cores are the most important part to keep warm, after all." Raito looked up and saw that L was simply staring at him. "What?" he said, "It makes sense, doesn't it? That shroud is big enough to cover us, we need the rest, and we need the heat."

"Yes…it makes perfect sense, Raito-kun, but…I'd rather not. If it's all the same."

The bindings from Raito's chest fell to the ground easily in a single long chain of leather. He continued to stare at L, not understanding what could possibly bother the other man over this. "Ryuuzaki, we have slept together before. Several months of those handcuffs, remember?"

L nodded, slowly, as if that information was not yet enough to pacify him.

"Is it having to remove your shirt? I've seen you bathe as well."

A sharp look from L seemed to question whether or not Raito had seen him because they were so close from the cuffs or whether or not he had purposely looked. L should understand if Raito had looked, because what better opportunity to size up one's rival but in the bath, and L would also have to admit that he had done so himself for that very reason.

Since a logical reason to shy from this was not presenting itself, Raito concluded that L had to have an illogical reason. He just didn't know what that was.

"We have slept beside one another, yes," L admitted, "and bathed in the others' presence as well, but…that is entirely different from…from…"

"Sleeping in each others' arms?"

The red that flushed to L's cheeks surprised Raito greatly but it also explained quite a bit. Raito knew well that his companion was not prone to physical contact. They had fought a number of times, brushed against each other, and recently L had placed a hand on Raito's shoulder several times. L even carried Raito, closely, most of the journey to that final monitor. But skin contact is very different, especially in sleep. They had slept together, but on their very separate sides of a bed and they had certainly never touched while bathing. This was bordering on intimacies L knew little to nothing about.

And then Raito understood. The question about the magazine. The annoyance with Misa. The way L shied from touch. L knew nothing of intimacy and it disturbed him that Raito did and yet L was in no way a part of that world with him. Raito highly doubted L wanted to be part of that world _with him_, but the detective was left out and felt self-conscious that he knew so little about something Raito knew well.

That idea surged in Raito a feeling of power he struggled to suppress. He knew something that L could not even conceive. Raito was no stranger to intimacies. He was already having sex when he first took on the name of Kira; it was expected of a normal teenage boy, after all, and Raito did not deny that he felt urges from time to time. Even Misa, someone he often despised, was useful for that, and she had no problem with giving Raito what he wanted. But this was L, the socially inept genius extraordinaire who probably had never even kissed a girl. Sleeping with skin contact beside another person must have seemed rather frightening. It was one of the few topics that actually rendered L incapable of maintaining his usual façade.

Raito banished all feelings of superiority aside. "Ryuuzaki…we're just going to sleep," he said, "We'll be warmer, we'll be perfectly safe, and we'll get the rest we need. Are you really that afraid of touching me?"

"Of course not."

That answer had come a little too quickly to be believed. "Right," Raito said, "Then why don't you hand over the shroud so I can turn it into a good blanket for us. Or are you feeling too…illogical for that?" Raito grinned; he couldn't help goading the detective at least a little.

Mustering up something as close as he could manage to his impassive expression, L willed away his blush and pulled the shroud over his head to hand to Raito.

Taking it, Raito tried to be conscientious of L's discomfort, but couldn't help eyeing the other man a little as he got to work tying some of his leather into the holes of the shroud. He had to sit to do it and L sat down as well, hugging his knees into his chest in a manner very much like his usual sitting position. It didn't stop Raito from noticing how L's ribs stood out though.

"How much do you weigh?" Raito asked, between pulls of leather and diligent working.

L stared at him. "What does that matter?"

"Just curious."

"You are curious about many things, Raito-kun."

"Yes, and up until recently you've been pretty forthcoming when I am. So how much do you weigh? Weighed, whatever, you know, back on earth."

L shifted and seemed to pull his knees in tighter. "Over a hundred pounds."

It was lucky Raito was not dealing with a needle and thread, because he might have stabbed himself. "Over a hundred pounds. A lot over I hope."

"I don't know. A hundred and ten I suppose."

"A hundred and—" Raito almost ghost-stabbed himself again, "That's all? We're the same height, for crying out loud, you should be at least one-twenty if not more. That's horrible."

L shifted again. "I am perfectly healthy." A moment passed. "Was," L amended.

A smile curved over Raito's lips. "Right. And I'll bet you're just dying for some chocolate or a piece of cake."

Again, L pulled his knees in tighter. "And what are you dying for, Raito-kun?" he asked. The question was not quite friendly, and Raito felt almost physically assaulted by it. Like a slap he knew he deserved. It was just so easy, and even easier for Raito to forget that he was human. Maybe for the first time in six years.

"Sorry. Ignore me, okay? I didn't mean you…look bad or anything."

This, finally, pulled L out of the cocoon he had been making of himself, and the detective seemed to relax. "I…know how I look. I doubt good would be the right word for it even if you will not say bad."

"Do you care? About how you look, I mean? I always assumed you didn't."

"I don't," L said quickly, which came too quickly again and though L remained relaxed he shifted once more, "I…have never taken the time to care, but I still…notice…when others look more presentable than I do. Such as yourself. It seems so effortless for you, Raito-kun, and yet…you are always so handsome. Even from this world I could watch and see how the women you met would look at you. I…have never experienced that."

Raito chuckled and said, "No, I bet not," though he did not mean to offend, much as he suddenly realized he had. L curled in again, so quickly that Raito could kick himself. "Damn it, Ryuuzaki, what happened to that thick skin? Things used to roll right off of you. And I didn't mean anything by what I said. You're unkempt, but not unattractive. The simplest things could make a difference. You have a handsome enough face."

"I do?" L looked genuinely interested in this.

Raito was almost finished with their makeshift blanket and he was getting very cold without anything on his upper body. "Yeah, you do," he said.

"Then…what simple things could I do to make it more…like you? Effortless."

"Well…I suppose…what we're about to do is a good start."

A tremor ran through L that Raito almost missed, and he was very curious about it since he did not.

"Sleep, Ryuuzaki," Raito said, "You need more sleep. You never sleep. You have such nice eyes but who could tell with those bags under them."

L went cross-eyed then as if trying to see his own eyes without a reflecting surface to help.

Raito held back a laugh. "And sitting and walking straighter would do a lot too. You look more put together that way. It can't be all that hard to straighten your back."

For a moment, L looked skeptical, but he nodded, urging Raito to continue.

"Clothing," Raito said next, "You can't wear a big T-shirt and jeans everyday. Not the same ones. You have no idea how many times I wanted to just pull you aside and dress you myself."

This, once again, particularly intrigued L and a black eyebrow disappeared into his hairline. "You would…like to dress me?"

A sly smile took hold of Raito's features then. "Maybe not physically," he said. He meant it to lighten things, but L looked tenser than ever now. The detective really was the hardest man to figure out even with all Raito knew of him. "Listen," Raito said, holding up the constructed blanket, "I'm done with this. At least, as much as can be done to it, so let's just get some rest, okay? Sleep is a good thing. When's the last time you just let yourself sleep until your body woke up on its own? You know, without feeling the need to get up because you were working on a case."

This question was not intended to be a stumper. "That would depend on the last time I didn't have a case. And then…I suppose…I…am not entirely sure."

Raito shook his head and waved at L to join him as he lied down on the hard ground, "Get over here. You're hopeless, but at least I can get you to sleep," he said.

For a few awkward moments, L did not move. Raito was lying on the ground, their strange blanket covering him, waiting for L to curl in next to him for some sleep, and it all just seemed so surreal to both of them that Raito could understand why it took L a minute to actually get up and walk over to him. It still seemed silly that L was acting so foolish over something that really was the most logical way to approach the situation. Then again, even L had to have some human moments once in a while.

Finally, the detective made his way over to Raito, lifted the shroud with its holes tied together by leather, and slipped underneath. Raito was in his heavy boots and leather strap pants. The gloves he had set aside. L was left only in torn jeans that hung low on his hips. They were the strangest pair, especially if someone were to come along and find them. They only hoped that come tomorrow, or whatever it would be when they woke up and decided to move on, they would come upon someone themselves. They wouldn't last much longer without food and water.

"Ryuuzaki?"

"Mmm?"

"You have to actually be touching me for the body heat to work."

"Aa. Of course."

Carefully, L scooted closer under the blanket until he just barely brushed the skin of Raito's arm.

Raito sighed heavily. This really was ridiculous. They were two perfectly intelligent young men. This didn't have to include any drama. Raito reached out his arms and pulled L in tight against him, holding the suddenly very stiff other man so that their cold torso's touched in several places and began to warm. L shivered but did not pull away. In fact, Raito was surprised when L curled inward, his dark head tucked under Raito's chin, and his cheek touching Raito's chest. It was indeed warm though both could still feel the chill around them.

"Ryuuzaki?"

"Mmm?"

"What if we…die out here?"

"I suppose that will have to be dealt with should it come to pass, Raito-kun. What more can we do but continue on?"

"I guess. What do you think we'll find?"

"Who's to say? As long as there is something sweet to eat, I doubt I care where our path leads us. If that desire means I am dying for some chocolate or piece of cake then so be it. I have gone years without such things, but now I can truly feel the absence."

"You mean you're hungry?"

"Is that not what I said?"

Raito laughed. "I guess. I just think it's funny how you're whining."

L grumbled into Raito's chest, which greatly amused Raito since he had never heard such a noise from the detective before and the extra air on his chest felt especially warm.

"Seems mortality is teaching both of us to act more our age," Raito said, feeling exhaustion completely envelope him now with the warmth and the rhythm of L's breathing along with his strong heartbeat against Raito stomach as if vibrating into a cavern.

L mumbled some unintelligible reply, proving he too was more tired than he might let on, and Raito could feel L's breaths even out until he was certain his companion had fallen quickly to sleep.

"Goodnight," he whispered before succumbing as well, "Goodnight…Lawliet."

tbc...

A/N: My goodness have I been bad. I know my Saiyuki fans are going crazy too, but my reasons for taking so long with writing are very good. I'm busy with projects before graduation and I have just recently become engaged. Please forgive my lack of time to write. There will be one more part for sure, if not two (haven't decided) and then it will be open to one shots gallore, that I would not mind others doing either. Anyway, please let me know you're still with me and that this is still enjoyable.


	8. No one saw it coming

No one saw it coming

* * *

Raito had never felt so content, which was strange since there was a crick in his back that continued to scream discomfort and he felt oddly sticky in places. Still, the overall warmth was soothing, solid against his body from beneath his chin to past his toes. He liked the feeling and didn't dare move to ease his pained back for fear of disrupting the slumber of the figure with him.

L. Raito wouldn't have believed it yesterday. If yesterday was really a single day, that is. He wasn't entirely certain if shinigami time worked the same way as time on earth, but if the day before really was only a single day, the last time Raito slept he was still human.

A shiver climbed up Raito's crick and gave him a desire to move with sudden fury. He twitched, and to his relief, L did not move. Raito shifted his back then with a welcoming pop, and still L did not move. Finally, staring down at the black head on his chest, Raito reached with his free hand, the other being pinned beneath L's body, and wiped away the drool that had collected on his chest during the night. He didn't want L acting all embarrassed. Besides, he didn't really care. The places he and L were currently connected were warmth, almost sweaty, and it was a welcome difference from the freezing cold around them. Raito would swear it had dropped at least ten degrees.

L shivered as if to confirm this and made a few nondescript moans and mumbles before managing, "Raito-kun…?"

"Still here. Still cold. Still…dead," Raito finished with a laugh.

L did not find the humor. "How long have we slept?"

"Not sure. Several hours. I woke up a while ago."

Sitting up and stretching his pale arms above his head, L wore an odd pout and looked down at Raito despairingly, "Raito-kun," he said, "Why did you not wake me? We should have set out as soon as we were bodily capable."

"Which is exactly why I let you sleep," Raito countered. He placed his hands behind his head and allowed himself to lounge, enjoying the freeing feeling in his lungs that were no longer being pressed down upon by another's body. "You need sleep, Ryuuzaki. I let your body make the decision of when to wake instead of your brain. It was…the more logical thing to do."

L sat, somewhat scowling, somewhat blank-faced with remnants of sleep, and was managing this in what Raito realized was a surprisingly straight-backed position. Even as the detective spoke, Raito found himself mesmerized by L's change in appearance just from sitting up. "Your logic has no logic, Raito-kun," L said, "Concern, perhaps, courtesy, but not logic. Logic says that we must find our way out of this desert as soon as possible or we will die from dehydration and lack of food. Are you listening to me?" he pressed then, noticing that Raito's attention was nowhere near L's face. Raito was busy staring at L's neck.

Raito watched as L subconsciously brought a hand up to touch the back of his neck, as if something must be wrong with it, or perhaps a spider was crawling there if Raito was staring so hard. Raito found it amusing when L huffed in frustration at finding nothing.

"Raito-kun…" L said warningly.

"You have posture, Ryuuzaki," Raito explained, "No curve. Look. You're…fuller. Not so scrawny and closed-off. It suits you." Every word that left Raito was caressed with sincerity. He was honestly amazed L could actually sit without hunching.

A slow blush started from the tip of L's nose and spread. It was easy to spot with L's pale skin, and in vain attempt to stop it, L pulled the blanket up to his chin. "It…felt appropriate. I do not have any intention of maintaining posture, as you say, indefinitely. I have told you before that sitting as I normally do is the most conducive to my reasoning skills."

"Yeah. I remember," Raito answered with a touch of annoyance. Finally, he sat up as well. He realized then how close the two of them were, even with L wrapped up in their makeshift blanket, and was surprised to find this just as soothing as having L asleep in his arms.

Raito shook his head. He really needed to find some other company for the two of them soon. He shuddered to think what he might do, what he might risk, if left to his own devices for much longer.

"Better get going then," Raito said, standing and stretching his back with several more releasing pops, "Who knows if we'll find anything, but we still have to try, right?"

Sitting on the dark ground, wrapped tight in their blanket, L looked very small and very young to Raito. There were traces of a new pout now, though Raito didn't want to think what it was for. Large, drooping, but much better rested eyes, looked up at him like a puppy.

"Geez, Ryuuzaki. Keep looking at me like that and I'll think you want to eat me."

There was nothing slow about L's blush this time.

Raito grinned. "What?" he said, "Can't handle a joke. Come on," and Raito reached down to pull L up onto his feet whether the detective felt like moving or not.

It was very quickly that Raito realized his mistake. L gave an audible hiss when his feet touched the ground. Raito felt so foolish. He had completely forgotten that L's bare feet had walked along the rocky landscape for hours the day before, and would only be worse now that they had rested and started to form bruises and scabs. How could he ask the other man to continue walking?

"Here. Take my boots. I don't need them," Raito said, sitting back down and starting to untie the leather that held them securely in place, "Your feet look terrible."

L frowned. "I am aware of my current condition, Raito-kun. I do not, however, see any logic in this choice of yours. You do not need to be so selfless for my sake. What good will it do us if we both have trouble walking?"

Raito paused mid-unwrapping. L had a point. Even boot-clad now, L's feet would bother him, and soon Raito's would be hurting as well. It wouldn't be logical at all.

Recently, Raito had begun to realize how much he hated logic.

"I could…carry you."

"Out of the question."

"Why? You can barely stand let alone walk another hundred miles on this rock."

L, arms crossed and feet gingerly shifting weight to test their ability to move, shook his head in firm resolve. "If I indeed find I am unable to walk further, then perhaps, and only as a last resort, would I allow your sacrifice. Even then, it would be more logical—"

"To leave you behind," Raito finished. He stood back up, boots still on, and eyed Ryuuzaki as if sizing up an opponent. L froze to see Raito looking at him this way, as Raito surely looked at him while they were both on Earth and alive. "Should I? That would be most logical, wouldn't it? To leave you now, I mean. You'll only slow me down, after all. It would be the most _logical_ thing if I just left."

The flush that had remained in L's cheeks vanished, leaving only ash. L opened and closed his mouth, meaning to speak but unable, several times. Finally, he said, "Yes. That…would be best."

Later, Raito would recognize what a foolish thing it was to do, but at the time there could have been nothing more gratifying than punching L back onto the ground as hard as he could.

L stared up at him, not understanding, but Raito could only shake, both fists clenched tight.

"You don't get it, do you?" he said, "This isn't survival of the fittest anymore, Ryuuzaki. We're already dead. Now, I may not know what it is we'll find out there, but whatever it is, we're finding it together. Do you understand? Even if I have to crawl with you on my back. I will never leave you behind."

Black and caramel eyes locked, but L turned from the look quickly and rubbed at his eyes as if still waking. Raito could have sworn he saw something glistening for a moment. Impossible though, he thought. The great detective L does not cry. Perhaps he hit him a little harder than intended.

Perhaps not.

"You…are an eternal paradox, Raito kun," L said, keeping his face turned away from Raito even as he stood.

"Yeah, and I'm also the only friend you have in the world, this one or any other. I hope that means more than just…putting up with me."

For the first time, Raito was certain that when L looked at him the expression he saw was indeed a smile. "Of course," L said, "After all, Raito-kun, it was I who waited for you. I could never have left you either. I apologize for being so difficult."

Raito had to laugh at that. "Ryuuzaki, when are you not difficult?" He was smiling despite the words, and because Raito meant them with all kindness, L managed to keep some of his smile as well. "Shall we go then?" Raito said.

"Yes. Each on our own two feet."

"Fine, fine. But at the first sign of stumbling…I'm picking you up."

At the moment, Raito picked up their blanket, and in a grand motion he swept it around them both. They would have to walk nearly touching the entire way, but Raito intended this. It would keep them warm, he reasoned, and it would also make it easier for him to tell when L could no longer carry on.

L shivered against him as they started to walk, and Raito dared not wonder if it was because of something other than the cold.

-----

"I never read comic books."

"Never?"

"Well…"

"Come on, you had to have glanced at a few. And you at least had to have seen the television show. English or Japanese. The Japanese translation had its own opening, you know."

"Raito-kun…"

"Passing the time, remember. I'm just curious. Which one?"

"Again, if I would have to choose, though I swear I am not terribly adept with this particular line of information, it would be…I suppose…Beast."

Raito laughed. "There's a surprise. L chooses the intellectual mutant."

"He is also incredibly strong and agile, you realize."

"And has a tendency to do work in strange sitting positions," Raito added with a grin.

"That too."

The pair was still on their endless trek, walking gingerly to spare L's feet, but moving as quickly as they could manage. Their shirts, woven into their blanket, was wrapped around them tighter than ever so that Raito had an arm snaked behind L's back to help guide his steps. L had initially protested the close contact, but his protests have long since died.

"And you, Raito-kun?" L inquired, "Which X-men character would you choose?"

Although Raito had asked the question he was not always used to L throwing the same question back at him. He thought a moment, and finally said, "I always liked Wolverine best, I guess."

L did not laugh, but something almost like a chuckle escaped him. "The sometimes gentle but more often feral and ruthless killer. How fitting."

Whether or not it was their conversation or their continued closeness that caused it, Raito and L had grown impervious to each others' barbs. This of course meant that they were supplying such barbs at a much more frequent rate.

The fact that L found it so easy to tease Raito was as unexpected as it was welcome. Little by little the detective was also discovering his more juvenile side. It made Raito grin just a little more.

"You think you're funny, don't you?" Raito said, his grin stretching the entirety of his face, "I also liked Mystique, if we're counting female characters, what would you say to that?"

The same half-chuckle responded, "Goodness, Raito-kun, one wouldn't even need a psychology degree to decipher that one. I have known too well your many faces."

A part of Raito's smile dropped. "Kira," he voiced softly. It was still a difficult topic, much as they tried to joke their way around it.

"Mmm," L nodded, "But more than that. There is your tender face. And your driven one. One moment you can show such concern for me and the next you strike me down, all with the hope of getting me to be better than I am. These faces are not bad, merely different, and I never know which one will look at me next. Yagami Raito. My paradox."

Perhaps in the past it would have disturbed him, but Raito enjoyed being labeled something possessive in L's life. They really did belong to each other now. They had experienced life and death together, because of each other even, and now they had a chance to try all over again.

If they ever found something outside this damn desert.

Raito was thinking about that, about how much he wished there would be an end somewhere for both of them so L could rest and heal his feet, and so he could rest his own spirit. He had hardly had time to breathe since his death. He was grateful for L's company but he wanted it in better surroundings. For both their sakes.

Yes, Raito was thinking very much about that, and so he did not hear the noise that caught L's attention.

"Does that sound like…flapping to you, Raito-kun?" the detective asked, slowing his pace, and forcing Raito to slow and eventually stop along with him.

Raito blinked and was back to being perceptive. Flapping? If he strained he could indeed hear something like wings. "You're right. But where is it—" Raito turned to look behind them and as he did he saw clearly where the noise was coming from. He didn't have time to finish his phrase. All he could do was shout, "Run!" before he took off, dragging L beside him.

L was too busy stumbling to look back, but he did not hesitate. Whatever had spooked Raito it was enough to send the young man into a flurry. L did his best to run, but his feet were a bloody mess, bruised and stinging. He could not run for long.

"Leave me," he said, and nearly tripped as he forced them to a stop with Raito's arm still swung around his back, "Just go."

"Damn it, Ryuuzaki, what did I say?" Raito growled, eyes alight and wild with urgency. He tossed the blanket from their shoulders, stole a quick look behind them at whatever was approaching with the sound of that terrible flapping, and scooped L into his arms. There was no time for protests now. Raito ran, headlong and determined, he ran. "I told you. I'll never leave you behind."

In this new position, much like a bride carried over the proverbial threshold, L felt very foolish, but he said nothing. At least like this he could risk a look back and see finally what it was that had Raito so scared.

Wide black eyes grew two sizes. He could not believe it. Everything he had been told had said this was impossible. The shinigami had sounded so adamant about not going into the distant areas of differently colored rock that L was almost sure they physically couldn't. Clearly, that assumption had been premature.

Confident and strong in the flaps of his black wings, Ryuuku was on their tail, a clear figure in the distance. There were no other shinigami with him, of that L was certain and very relieved, but Ryuuku was still there, gaining on them quickly. Legs could not match up to wings, after all. Ryuuku would surely catch them, especially with Raito slowed now that he had a hundred odd pounds of dead weight in his arms. And now they had lost their cover as well. What if they needed the sheet later? Logic still made L believe it would have been best if Raito left him. At least then he might have stood a chance.

L decided not to dwell too heavily on how pleased he was that Raito had instead kept his word.

"We'll never make it, Raito-kun. If Ryuuku-san can follow us, then where is sanctuary?"

Raito's breathing was heavy, his face red and filled with emotion. "Damn, Ryuuzaki," he said through stolen breaths, "Will you stop…being logical for one second…and try…for me…to find some optimism. Nothing can happen if you do not believe it."

"A paradox again, Raito-kun. You may be right, but physics are against us. He is gaining. We have nowhere to run."

"We have whatever lies ahead. I will _not_ stop."

Such determination. Raito knew it was foolish, but he could not help wanting to believe in the impossible. After all, he killed thousands upon thousands of people with pieces of paper and a pen. What more proof could he need that the impossible happens every day?

There must be a way, Raito thought, even as he could hear Ryuuku's flapping grow louder. It did not matter what the shinigami had planned, all that mattered was that they escaped, somehow, and found whatever it was out here that their trek had led them too. There had to be something. Anything.

It couldn't end like this.

"Raito-kun…"

"Save your breath, Ryuuzaki."

"Shouldn't it be you who is saving his breath?"

Raito decided not to answer that.

"I only speak to tell you…that regardless of what happens…there are no regrets in me. I only wanted to be with you…again."

Foolishness begets foolishness. The words were soft, tender even, spoken in a tone of voice he knew he had never heard from L before. There was affection in it, honest and without obligation. L was speaking as if they were destined to die again.

And as much as Raito would not accept such a fate, the moment he took to look at L, stunned as he was by the detective's words, was all it took for his feet to misstep.

They fell hard, flat forward with Raito landing on L's hip and crushing the other man against the rocks. He heard L gasp and groan against the pain, Raito's own fall mostly broken. He had only enough time to roll away from L and check his companion for injury before the flapping behind them came to a sudden stop.

Both young men turned to face their would-be attacker, L curled in on himself as the pain began to subside, and whatever futile hopes they had been clinging to seemed to fall like petals around them.

Ryuuku stepped closer, his wings gone, his perpetual smile eerie with the reflection from these differently colored rocks. As before, Raito knew fear he had not allowed since his first meeting with the shinigami. He was only human again and in the shinigami world. There were no more rules. Ryuuku could tear both him and L apart if he so chose.

Ryuuku took another step, and another, and just as he opened his mouth to speak he came to a very definite stop. It did not look at all intentional, more like the shingami had stepped up to a wall and failed to walk through it. Ryuuku tried to take another step, but the same halting jerk happened. He reached claws up to touch the unseen obstruction, and found…something. Something enough to hold him back.

"Impossible…" L said, recovered enough to sit up properly now.

Raito could only stare.

Ryuuku banged a fist against the barrier. "Not fair!" he cried, "How can you have power to do this? You are only human!"

Understanding the accusation, L and Raito looked at each other as if to ask which one of them was secretly some sort of sorcerer. Both shook their heads. But if it wasn't them…

"Let me through!" Ryuuku shouted, "I have not followed you to harm you. It was you who ran away. And now…now you're fully human just to escape this place. We could have done so much for your world, so much for mine, and you run?!"

"I am not Kira!" the words spilled from Raito's throat instinctually now. Whatever dream of destruction and deviousness Ryuuku had been awaiting, it would not come to pass. Raito would be free. He was sorry and he would suffer for his deeds forever, but he _would_ live again. "I…am not Kira. Find yourself another god, another role-model if that is what you want. I will not be that for you. I want nothing to do with it. Go back, Ryuuku. Go back to your world and change it if you want. Just leave me out of it."

In answer Ryuuku raised another fist to pound against the barrier, but his hand fell before committing the act. His face fell too, and Raito would almost swear the shinigami was pouting, despite his constant smile.

Suddenly, Ryuuku crumbled to the ground in a heap of crossed legs, and sighed. "You were so much fun, Raito. Shinigami live dull lives, but you…you made it worthwhile again. I could never find another like you."

"Then don't," Raito said, standing up now and walking close, but not too close, to the barrier's edge, "Find another way. Kill corrupt politicians. Kill criminals if you want. Make the world something new. But do it on your own. Or better yet," he thought aloud, trying to find a smile now that he was no longer running for his life, "Summon a view screen and kill whoever you want, but find some humanity instead of more years of life you don't want. Maybe then…you can know me as a friend instead of an…icon. I don't want to be known for what you admire me for, Ryuuku. I just want to live my life again."

Ryuuku stared at the ground, not really looking at it, and seemed to contemplate what Raito had said. When he spoke again, his voice was solemn. "I do not think I have the will for that. What do I know of being human? I only know the parts you despise."

Raito smiled for real now. "Figuring out the rest is half the fun," he said.

"Umm…Raito-kun?" came L's voice suddenly.

Raito did not turn around. "Just a moment. Listen, Ryuuku," Raito said, "You don't have to do anything. Figure out what you want and do that. All I'm telling you is that it won't include me killing anyone. That's not who I am. Kira's dead. You should know that. You killed him."

"Raito-kun," L said again, a tad more insistent.

"Just a moment, Ryuuzaki," Raito responded in kind, still looking at Ryuuku.

But Ryuuku was standing, still solemn and unsure. He gingerly reached out to touch the barrier again, and again he found it, keeping him from getting any closer to Raito and L. The shinigami sighed once more and then turned, releasing his wings as if to fly away.

"Ryuuku, wait!" Raito called, and the shinigami paused just enough to look back, "I…I don't…blame you. I don't. You were right. Everything was me. I always had a choice. Whatever decision you make, just remember, it's yours, and no one can ever take that from you, even if you later regret everything. Okay?"

Part of Raito wondered if Ryuuku would scoff at him for trying to sound so philosophical and righteous, but they were things he needed to say, thing he needed to release in order to find some forgiveness for all he had done. Even if Ryuuku never understood, Raito was glad he had the chance to tell the shinigami the truth.

Ryuuku said nothing, merely glanced past them both at whatever lay beyond the barrier, nodded to Raito once, and then took off, flapping back towards the shinigami world.

Raito stood for several moments, watching Ryuuku go. "I wonder what he'll do," he said.

"I would be more inclined to question what we will do, Raito-kun. That is, if you would be kind enough to acknowledge me finally and that I have been trying to get your attention."

The mild annoyance to L's tone was one Raito had grown accustomed to by now. He turned slowly and gave L his most annoyed-in-response look. "What? I'm sorry for landing so hard on you, but…I…" Raito trailed off. His eyes had fixed on the object delicately held between L's pointer finger and thumb.

A small, soft, and very pink flower petal.

"Is that…?"

"A cherry blossom. It would seem. I landed on it."

"A cherry blossom."

"Indeed."

"Where would a cherry blossom come from around here?"

"Hmm, sounds like something worth investigating, wouldn't you say, Raito-kun?"

A smile returned full force to Raito's lips and he moved swiftly to gather the still sitting L back up into his arms, despite immediate protests. "Sounds _very_ worth investigating…Lawliet," he grinned, "Why don't we have a look at what just saved us?"

-----

Several minutes later, their highly prized find had awarded them with many sisters and brothers. There were not merely the occasional petals on the ground. After while, there were fully grown cherry blossom trees. They were full and beautiful and everywhere. The ground too began to soften and Raito realized he was walking on grass long after the terrain had changed.

It almost seemed too good to be true.

After some prodding, Raito agreed to set L back down. His arms were growing tired and the grass looked very welcoming to sore feet. L's look of bliss when his feet touched the soft green proved that he could not have imagined a better remedy for his bruises. Raito doubted it was a complete recovery, but he allowed the detective to walk on his own.

They continued on, and for what seemed forever there were still only cherry trees. Something loomed in the distance, but they could not yet make out what.

"Strange," L said, catching a falling blossom in his hand and studying it like a scientist looking through a microscope.

"I know. Where do you think they came from?"

"Oh, I wasn't wondering that, Raito-kun. It is strange that they are blooming, that's all. It isn't the right season for them, is it?"

Raito stared over at his companion incredulously. "We've been in a rocky shinigami desert for over a day, we find a grove of cherry trees, and you say 'it isn't the right season'?"

Naturally, L had no idea what was so wrong with his statement. "What?"

Knowing when to pick his battles, Raito just shook his head with another grin. "Look, maybe we should rest a bit since we're in the clear. Your feet must be killing you, grass or not."

"Actually, they feel perfectly fine. It's strange. It's almost as if…" As L was saying this he lifted one of his feet to get a better look at the damage, and was stunned into silence to find it perfectly healed. No blood, no bruises, nothing. "My. Do you suppose this place has healing properties?"

Raito stared at L's lifted foot, partially considering the question, but also marveling over the ease with which L could lift one foot practically up to touch his nose. "Maybe," he answered finally, "Or maybe _we_ have healing properties because of this place."

L set his foot back down and gave Raito a small smile. "A healing factor, Raito-kun?"

Raito had no choice but to return the expression. "I did say Wolverine was my favorite."

Another succession of minutes later, and the distant looming something formed itself into what they realized was a building. The grass had found a path, and they were on that path now, being lead to this building that was surrounded by cherry trees and floating pink petals.

"You don't suppose…"

"Don't say it, Raito-kun."

"It's only…well…I could imagine many things about a possible…Heaven. And this isn't all that bad really."

"I understand. And yet…nice as it is…it doesn't feel like Heaven to me. Besides," L added, pointing at the building that was focusing more and more as they approached it, "I must confess that I never expected Heaven to have its main offices in a replica of the Diet building."

Raito almost laughed, but when he looked forward and really took in the shape and nuances of the building, it really did look like the Diet building. But…they weren't on Earth.

So where were they?

"How are you feeling, Ryuuzaki?"

"Wonderful actually. You?"

"Better than I did when I was alive." Raito looked at L and grinned wide, coming to a sudden stop. L stopped with him. "This isn't Heaven. But I am a little…interested."

"Yes…" L's eyes betrayed that he knew Raito was up to something, just not what.

"So…I was thinking…" Raito's grin was sinister for exactly two seconds, before it became entirely childish, "Race you there!" he shouted, and was off like a shot before the last word left him.

Raito ran as fast as he could ever remember running, and though he felt fatigue catching up to him, it was almost halved compared to what he would normally expect. Especially with how weary his body should be right now. It felt great.

Sensing L close behind, Raito pushed further forward, running like his feet barely needed to touch the ground, and he realized then that they barely did. He was enjoying himself so much, he didn't notice that L had gained and overtaken him until they reached the building and L's hand touched the front doors seconds before his.

Both young men gasped for breath, both sweaty and tired and loving it, and both were very content with everything. L's smile was even almost normal looking.

"Well-deserved goofing around time?" the former detective asked.

"Definitely."

Once they had caught their breaths, they knew there was only one thing left for them. Together, each claiming one of the double doors, they pulled…

…and were so fiercely grabbed by various hands, their breaths were stolen.

Raito cried out, wondering if it had all been some sort of trick. He could hear L struggling and crying out along with him, and he started to panic. The light was so bright, he couldn't see, and he could feel so many hands on him, pulling him, dragging his feet down what must have been a hallway but could have been anything.

Distantly he heard people speaking.

First, a stern man, "You're late."

A young girl. "So cute!"

A man that seemed especially gifted in whining. "Why do they get the new desks? I've been here longer than anyone."

A boy. "Stop complaining."

A man with far too much excitement in his voice for the age he sounded. "How exciting! I've been running low on willing participants, after all. New blood is always fun."

These phrases turned into chattering amongst the group that presumably belonged to the hands Raito could still feel dragging him. He wanted to yell, to struggle away, but his body felt infused with what he had felt outside, like a new life was pouring into him and it was so intense, he could do nothing but obey where the hands led him.

He heard a door open in front of them and close behind. He felt cool air he knew was from a fan and not from outside. And finally he felt himself pushed into a chair, and heard L huff beside him, hopefully having been pushed into a parallel chair, until finally, finally the world began to focus again.

Raito had to admit he felt wonderful. But he wanted answers.

The initial answers he got were not at all what he expected. He certainly didn't anticipate the hands belonging to what looked like a group of…office workers.

"Who…are you people?" Raito managed.

The man with the stern voice, wearing a well-tailored brown suit and glasses, pushed said glasses further up the bridge of his nose and said, "You are in JuOhCho located in Meifu, the land of the dead. A slightly different version than the one you just left, I should add. We are part of EnMaCho's Shokan Division. And you two," the man said, pointing at Raito and L, "have been assigned a new post."

The man who had before sounded particularly adept at whining, who wore a rumpled black suit and had the most amazing purple eyes, bounced like a puppy, despite his obviously adult age, and said, "You're shinigami now," as if it was very exciting news and they should be only too happy to hear it.

"What?!" cried L and Raito together. Had they not just risked their unlives to undo that very thing and now they were…

"Wait," Raito said, holding up his hands and looking over the group of people before him.

Besides the two men Raito had taken notice of before, there was a boy in a jean jacket who looked rather pissy, a girl who could have been only fourteen, a man with round spectacles, long blonde hair, and what looked like a small owl on his shoulder, and another man, previously unheard amongst the hands, who had pointed ears and a cigarette in his mouth. Despite the slight beastly look to that final man, none of these people looked anything like shinigami.

"This is…a different land of the dead than the shinigami world we left?" L asked, going off of what the stern man had said.

The blonde man with the owl leaned forward, inspecting both L and Raito with odd closeness and said, "Oh quite different. We are the flip side of the coin, if you will. The prettier and less nasty side. The major difference being, of course, that instead of being granted the ability to take lives, we ensure that wrongly taken lives are set right, and that souls end up where they are intended to. Much more exciting, I can assure you."

Raito wanted to scream. They had left one shinigami world for another. This was unfair, this was ridiculous, this—

"This makes perfect sense."

Raito turned and looked at L as if his companion had grown another head.

Noticing his friend's stare, L turned to look at Raito and explained, "The universe is filled with checks and balances for equilibrium, Raito-kun. If the shinigami world of Ryuuku-san exists, it is logical that one quite the opposite would exist as well. It is rather exciting, don't you think?"

"No. We're still dead!"

"Actually…well, yes, you are," said the pissy boy in the jean jacket, "But you're a little more than dead. You feel different, right? That's your new shinigami body taking effect. You can go down to earth, eat, drink, bleed. You're practically human, just…not."

"Fascinating." L was clearly enjoying every part of this.

Raito was enraged. "I wanted my life back!" he cried.

"Then you shouldn't have lost it," said the stern man. Again the man pushed his glasses up the bridge of his nose. Raito had a feeling he was the type of man easily respected, easily feared, and hard to get along with. "You forfeited your life the moment you touched that Death Note, Yagami Raito. We knew you would end up here eventually, but you had to choose it. You did. Good for you. Now you can live something close to your life, but with a price. You work for us now. There is a lot of backed up paper work thanks to your years of _rule_. Shinigami kills are prepared for in the Hall of Candles that catalogues all lives, but for a human to use a Death Note, that messes with the whole system. Your first assignments will be to clean up your mess. I do apologize, Mr. L, that you must share this punishment," he added, looking at L, who started a bit at being reffered to as Mr., "Though from the looks of it, you are not entirely displeased."

If Raito didn't know better, he would swear L was bouncing in his seat.

"Imagine, Raito-kun," L turned to him, "Endless cases to solve. How often do deaths go unexplained, hmm? Constantly." The smile on L's face was practically manic, mainly because the detective usually smiled so subtly.

Raito wanted to be angry, he really did, but everything that had been said to him made sense, and was in fact a much more fitting punishment for him. He could live, but with a duty, and first his duty would be to fix what he had done wrong. He really had no right to be upset over getting what he deserved.

And there would still be L. His…partner, it would seem. Maybe there was some excitement in store for them after all.

"Well, now that all that's settled," said the blonde with the owl, pulling eagerly on L's hand and lifting the former detective from his chair, "We must do something about your attire."

Raito too was pulled from his chair, led gently by the young girl. He didn't want to ask how she had come to be a shinigami, nor did he want to ask the boy who looked only a few short years older than her.

"You can't go around half dressed, after all," the blonde man said, since Raito and L were left only in their pants, and L was still barefoot.

As they were led into a back room, Raito watched as the blonde leading L suddenly made a fist behind L's back and punched him hard just above his tailbone. Raito's initial instinct was to pounce but the man with purple eyes was suddenly next to him, holding him back and smiling.

L gave a gasp at the punch, but did not move to attack. He simply looked at the blonde man with a grimace.

"Posture first, dear boy," said the blonde man, "That knock should last you a while, I think. Keep you from slouching."

At this news, L looked positively horrified.

Feeling more at ease now, Raito returned the purple-eyed man's smile with a half one (the most he could manage with all that was going on) and continued to follow. He rather liked the idea of L having to walk standing up straight. Seeing the other man sit that way had been very pleasing, after all.

In the back room there were two screens that had been set up for them to change behind. They were thankfully led first into the bathroom, pushed roughly into a large shower, still in their pants, where they spent several minutes like that until they thought it was safe to remove the rest of their clothing.

It was a little awkward having to shower together, and they knew those people were waiting for them, so they finished quickly, barely ever once meeting eyes before they left the shower, thankfully being immediately handed towels to cover them with.

Then they were pushed behind the screens and given clothing, which they were only too happy to put on.

Raito emerged first, comfortable in a tan suit and red tie that he realized resembled a little too much his old school uniform. But it was tailored perfectly to fit him and looked, he had to admit, very good.

L took much longer, presumably because he rarely changed at all except after baths or showers, and was used to a single set of clothing. When he did emerge finally, Raito's draw dropped. It was more than just L's forced posture. The detective looked…really good.

He was wearing jeans, yes, but fitted ones, a T-shirt, yes, but also fitted, and with a design on the front that was wonderfully artistic. And he had a short leather jacket on with a high collar, that open with the T-shirt beneath looked…perfect. Raito had never seen L look so put together. And the former detective didn't even look uncomfortable.

"Not bad," Raito smiled.

L smiled a little shyly in return, also enjoying his appearance as he turned to get a better look in the mirror on the far wall. Before he could speak, however, the blonde man came forward.

"A rushed job, I know, but we're already behind schedule. We'll show you to your desks and you can get started. You'll be doing paper work for…quite some time before the real cases start. But you've been given a section of Tokyo, which is very prized. You'll never be bored here."

Indeed, they were shown their desks, which were side by side and cluttered with paper work that made them both suddenly sullen. It would take weeks to clear through it all.

Thankfully, they were afforded a little time to get acquainted with the other staff members, and were also shown the connected apartments where they would stay when not working. Their own rooms were small and simple, but workable. They didn't think to question that they were only shown one apartment for the two of them. That is, until they were shown the bedroom.

"Excuse me, Watari," L said, looking to the blonde man who finally had a name, "But why are Raito-kun and I to stay here together with only one bed between us? Is there a shortage of rooms in Meifu?"

"No," Watari said, "We just thought we'd make things easier for you."

"Easier how?" Raito questioned, coming around the bed and staring at it half in fascination and half in suspicion.

Watari grinned. He was the only coworker who had brought them to their apartment, the others having much work of their own. "Well, we assumed, you see, that you would be most comfortable in a familiar environment. Whenever we have watched the two of you together, when you were still both on Earth of course, you were…often seen in the same bed, after all."

"Yeah, _handcuffed_," Raito countered, realizing suddenly what these people assumed of the two of them.

Watari chuckled behind his hand. "Right, well…that is…entirely your business." And he walked away quickly, heading for the front door. "At your desks in ten minutes, says our dear Tatsumi," Watari called behind him, and was soon gone, leaving them alone in their bedroom.

_Their_ bedroom.

"It would seem they have some misconceptions about us, Raito-kun."

Raito felt like punching something, though he wasn't entirely sure what or why. "You think?" he said, and didn't move, since he didn't really want to punch one of the freshly painted white walls.

"Do you…mind it that terribly?" L questioned.

Again with the pout, Raito thought. L was a master at it, because it didn't really look like a pout, but he knew it was one. It was something L did with his eyes, maybe his lips, something, and it just made you want to do whatever the damn recluse asked of you.

"If you would prefer we change this arrangement, I am certain they will be willing to find us another room. Or another bed at least." There was disappointment in L's words, damn it. Why was there disappointment?

"Ryuuzaki," Raito tried, sitting on the edge of the bed and allowing his own posture to curve much as L's might have in the past, "I'm just…flustered. Impossible, I know, but I am. This place, everything, it's all happening so fast. I never expected this. It has nothing to do with our…_this_ bed."

Carefully, L sat on the bed next to Raito, keeping a good distance between them. He could not curl his posture, much as he might want to, thanks to Watari's decisive punch. "Raito-kun," he said, "I hope you will not be bothered by what I am about to say, but…I would not mind terribly for us to share this place. Or this…" L couldn't say it, but his hand brushed the comforter and Raito understood. "But only because I have grown so fond of your immediate company and I…don't think I care to live alone again. It might be…nice…to be together."

"Dead together?" Raito tried with a smile.

L's lips twitched. "Yes."

"I guess I can…handle that. It might be better if we got an extra bed in here though. I mean…eventually."

"Eventually," L agreed, and that was good enough, even if they never really got around to getting one.

"So," Raito said.

"So," L replied.

They weren't human. They were shinigami. Meifu shinigami. JuOhCho shinigami. If they dared say it, _good_ shinigami. This was going to be an interesting eternity.

Raito got up and L got up with him. They left behind their new apartment with its currently solitary bed, and returned to their office, to their desks, to their casework. And what made everything fall into place and so wonderfully worth it was when Hisoka, the pissy boy, brought Raito a strong cup of coffee, and Tsuzuki, the slightly annoying and very good at whining man, gave L the last of the jelly doughnuts.

Not Heaven. But for Raito and L, it was close enough.

THE END

A/N: HA! Take that! Bet you didn't see that coming. And yes, it was planned all along. You see, once upon a time and late at night during a discussion with my roommate, the question of how to end this fic (after the first chapter went up) was posed. By morning they were in Meifu and neither me nor my roommate is quite sure how. At any rate, there you have it. I know, not much for boy on boy action, but that's what obligatory sex epilogues are for. And one shots. Please feel free to write your own one shots about Raito and L in Meifu.

Oh, and if anyone doesn't understand what's going on, they are in the anime Yami no Matsuei (Descendants of Darkness). If you don't know it, go get it. Right now. Really. The anime is wonderful. The manga is even better, though incomplete.

Anyway, thanks for all your support and I hope you enjoyed. Flames will be ignored but uproarious laughter will be shared amongst all. Thanks again, and as always, see ya next ficcie!

Crimson


	9. Obligatory Sex Epilogue

Obligatory Sex Epilogue

* * *

Almost three weeks had passed since Raito and L found freedom from the shinigami world. Of course, their freedom had come with new shackles as a new kind of shinigami, but besides the endless paperwork, they were finding themselves fitting right in.

The paperwork was outlandish, though, and would take them months to work through before they would get a real case. Raito knew he could only blame himself for that. All of the cases were deaths he had caused. He had to file everything, of every death he had prematurely brought to fruition. Luckily, most of the deaths had passed through the Hall of Candles normally, despite being early. But just enough had left unruly spirits, and once the paperwork was completed, Raito and L would have many Tokyo cases to sink their teeth into. Luckily, the field work for the deaths overseas, of which there were many in America, would be left to American teams to handle. Part of Raito almost felt that was unfair. He would have gladly accepted the brunt of all of the deaths. He supposed the amount he was dealing with and would continue to deal with would be enough to humble him, though. Working with L for so long had done quite a bit of that already.

"I never thought I could feel so tired from just going through files," Raito said, stretching his neck from side to side painfully as he removed his jacket and started to get ready for bed. He and L had taken to burning the midnight oil in order to get through the files more quickly. It was paying off, and both were used to long nights, but it was starting to have its toll on Raito.

L, on the other hand, loved every minute of it, and couldn't wait to get out in the field. "If you would like assistance in removing that crick in your neck, Raito-kun…" L offered, removing his own jacket and also beginning to prepare for bed.

L had become surprisingly well-rested since their arrival. Raito ensured that L slept when he slept, which meant actually getting at least seven hours of sleep every night. It was making L a whole new man. That, along with the good posture and new clothes.

L still chose to walk barefoot.

They had grown so close over the past few weeks that Raito didn't even question taking L up on his offer. He removed his shirt and tie, even tossed his pants aside to leave only his boxers, and sat on the edge of the bed. "Please," he said, "I can't seem to work this out myself. Serves me right, huh?"

"What do you mean?" L removed his T-shirt and pants, leaving him in his boxers as well, of which Raito had insisted upon after discovering L wore briefs.

"I mean I deserve it," Raito explained, hanging his head as L began to rub his neck with long, thin, and very strong fingers, "The paperwork, the crick in my neck, the…bad dreams."

"Dreams, Raito-kun?"

"Don't play stupid, L." Raito had come to call L "L" lately. Ryuuzaki was a name L chose for safety's sake; it had no real meaning. And Lawliet was not comfortable for L to accept as his name quite yet. Too personal. Too much a reminder of past things L wasn't ready to think about. And so he was simply L, as he had been to many for many years. "Don't play stupid," Raito said again, "You sleep right next to me. I know you've noticed."

"Aa," L admitted. He dug into Raito's shoulders deeply, eliciting an appreciative moan from his companion. "You wake up almost every night. Are they getting worse? What are they about?"

Raito shifted uncomfortably, much as he was enjoying the attention to his sore muscles. "They're just…about the people we handle in the case files. Like I can see all of their faces again. And no…they're not getting worse. They were bad enough to begin with."

L massaged one hand up into Raito's scalp to which Raito gladly bent his head to give L more access. This was easy for them. They worked together, left nothing unsaid or a secret, slept by each other in a bed they couldn't bring themselves to complain about, and considered themselves the best of friends. Everything was comfortable with them now.

Well, almost everything.

Working his way back to Raito's shoulders, L pressed deeply into the knots he found. "There are ways to get rid of dreams," he said softly, his mouth close to Raito's neck, close enough for warm air to hit Raito's skin and make him shiver.

"You mean…talking things out, forgiving myself, hypnotism. Something like that?"

"Mmm…something like that," L repeated, "Distraction is also often helpful for bad dreams. If you…had your mind on something…else."

As soon as Raito felt L leaning in closer to him, intimately close so that their bodies were almost flush and L's lips were about to touch his skin, Raito jumped up quickly and moved away. "Time for bed. Yeah…" Raito said. He was too red in the face at first to look back at L, but he imagined his friend was wearing an expression of disappointment. "Thanks," he managed weakly, "For the massage."

"Of course," L said with a sigh, and Raito could hear L shift on the bed, moving to his own side and sliding under the covers in resolution.

It had been like this since their first night in that bed. And Raito thought L would be the skittish one. L had seemed skittish that night they slept out in the elements of the other shinigami world. Ever since then, however, L had become more and more confident. At first it was almost unperceivable. They would wake with L's head on Raito's chest, his arms around him, their bodies close. Raito thought it was security for L, an impulse, especially after their night outside. But then L would start to find that close position before they fell asleep, snuggling in and nuzzling Raito's skin as if he wanted more than security.

L was putting the moves on him, or so it would seem. But "seem" grew over time and with the way L was always managing to find ways to be intimate, there was no mistaking what was happening between them.

Raito was terrified.

What if it ruined everything? What if the friendship he so loved was destroyed by this development? Raito wasn't sure he could risk that. He had never considered such things before. Choosing girlfriends and bedmates had always had practical reasons. He had to date the most successful girl in college. He had to date Misa. He had sex with willing partners when it suited him and being friends never entered the equation. With L that was no longer the case.

The very idea of analyzing the pitfalls and benefits of sleeping with L made Raito want to laugh. Part of him believed he was imaging the advances completely. The other part longed for them to be real so he could finally pounce. Raito was never one to dismiss different forms of sexuality. If he wanted to be with L then he would be, no questions asked. That is, except for this sudden surge of conscience he had been experiencing ever since this new life began. Raito was entirely perplexed.

He was also very tired and had been standing facing the wardrobe for more minutes than could possibly seem natural. Correcting this, Raito turned back to the bed, flicked off the lamp, and climbed in. He lied there a minute, staring at the ceiling, before finally turning to L.

"Hey…L?"

"Mmm?" L was curled up facing away from Raito, which only made Raito feel more annoyed with his actions. He was literally pushing L away, and he didn't want that.

"I…I, umm…" He could do this. He could. "I'm a little…cold," he said finally. It was the best he could muster to get L to move closer to him.

It worked. "Of course," L said, and rolled over, inching his way closer until they were in skin contact the whole length of their bodies save their shorts. L didn't look at him. He just closed his eyes and snuggled in. Raito assumed this was for his benefit. L's way of saying it was okay and that he wouldn't push.

It was one of the few times Raito could really feel their age difference. Even if Raito had practically caught up it didn't make L's extra years lessen. Raito had more experience sexually, of that there was no question, but L had more life experience. And it showed, as if L just knew he had to give "the kid" some extra time.

To be honest, it kind of pissed Raito off.

"Don't patronize me," Raito said, pulling L in closer, "It's been weeks of this. Coddling me isn't going to make it easier."

L lifted his head to look Raito in the eyes. "My, my, Raito-kun, your seduction tactics _are_ impressive," he said, holding back a small smile.

"Shut up. I'm impressed _you_ have _any_."

"I have—"

"No experience. I know. So don't go pretending you knew what you were doing all these—"

It is proven fact that a kiss is always the fastest way to shut someone up. Granted, L also half proved Raito right with his sloppy, wet, and very hurried lip lock, but neither minded since it finally got the issue to the moment. And being in the moment is always better than wondering what ifs.

Raito corrected the kiss subtly, turning his head just enough so that the kiss sealed tight and deep. He felt the hurriedness of L and tried to slow him, stroking with his tongue and capturing L's to feel the gesture returned.

Their pulses began to pick up and match pace, beating in synch through their chests that were tight together as they continued to kiss. Raito was the one who finally pulled away to catch his breath, and when he saw the flush to L's face, the swollen lips, and those impossibly wide black eyes, he had to laugh. Neither could have anticipated this all those years ago, and yet now, ever since they found each other again in death, it came so naturally, as if only in death they were able to discover their true selves.

Raito was still laughing when he noticed L's prominent pout. "I'm sorry, I'm not laughing at you," he tried to explain, hoping to rid the former detective of that pout as quickly as possible, "Well, I am, but…it's just…this. Us. Have you ever even kissed anyone before?"

"Well…no," L said shortly.

Raito quickly stifled the remainder of his laughter, picking up on L's insecurity. "The kiss was fine. Great. That's not why I'm laughing either."

"Then why? This certainly cannot be too unexpected. Unless my hints have been too subtle," L said, looking slightly concerned, his thumb suddenly up by his reddened lips.

It took all of Raito's willpower—what was left of it—not to start laughing again. "L, we know everything about each other, we sleep in the same bed, you've been curling up next to me whether I ask you to or not for weeks, you work the kinks out of my shoulders and look at me sometimes like I'd be as good to eat as a piece of cake."

L promptly blushed at the sound of that.

"Subtle has not been our problem," Raito continued, "Just nerves. This isn't unexpected, it's un…precedented. I didn't expect this. I mean, I tried to…kill you once."

"Actually, succeeded would be the better way to categorize that, Raito-kun," L said matter-of-factly, though Raito would swear he could hear the sarcasm that was surely there as well.

Raito smiled sourly. "Right. I just…didn't expect to one day feel like you of all people would know me better than anyone I had ever met before. I never expected to feel like this and want to…pin you back to this bed and…and…"

"And what…Raito-kun?" L prompted with a slyness despite his apparently placid expression.

This time Raito allowed his laughter. "So you do have seduction tactics," he said.

"On occasion. But what I lack in experience I hope I make up for in…eagerness to learn. Raito-kun…"

"If you say "teach me" I will not be held responsible for my actions," Raito cut in, more than half serious, but with a growing grin.

L returned that expression, which looked remarkably devious on him, and simply said, "Please."

How one word, softly spoken and sincere, could sound so incredibly sexy was almost beyond Raito's comprehension. But what he did understand was that no more than half a second passed after L spoken that word before Raito had the detective pinned to the mattress just as promised.

The gasp that left L assured Raito his friend was experiencing the same flutter of feeling below the belt as he was, and after a few moments of sucking on L's neck, he could feel the proof of that pressing into his hipbone.

At first L could merely arch his back, allowing the attention on his neck and pressing his hips up to meet Raito's above him. But his pale, delicate hands were free and soon he started to use them. Trailing his hands up Raito's sides and touching the other man in a way he always wanted to. Deep down L always wanted more than to simply catch Kira, he wanted to possess him. And since he knew from the beginning that Raito was Kira, logically he also wanted to possess Raito. And really, possessing Raito was far more enjoyable, and without the nasty consequence of death.

Maybe they would find Heaven together someday, after Raito's debts had been paid, but regardless there was always time to find a little Heaven right where they were.

"R-Raito…"

"Yeah…?"

"I don't really…know…"

"I know. That's what the teaching part's for," Raito grinned, enjoying the gentle exploring part that had both of them flush, but ready for the part where he had L moaning and trembling beneath him. He moved his hands to the waist of L's shorts and slipped his fingers under the elastic just enough for L to get the idea. "You know you can tell me to stop at any time," Raito said, "I only want this if you want this. I won't be angry."

"No. But I would be," L said with a small smile, "I have never done this before but I trust you to lead me through it, Raito. Logically, telling you to stop would say I do not trust you as much as I allude. And that is simply not true."

Raito had to laugh a little at that. "Wow," he said, "I never quite appreciated your logic before, but if it's telling you that you have to have sex with me right now then…by all means, keep the logic coming."

L would have laughed as well if he wasn't unbelievably distracted by the sudden movement of his shorts down his thighs. "Raito…"

"All you have to say is stop," Raito replied, continuing his removal of L's shorts until he had them off and tossed aside. L said nothing more so Raito took the opportunity to really look at the body before him.

He had seen L naked in the baths, but bathing has rules. You look out of necessity never to peruse or size-up. Finally, Raito had the chance to look for completely selfish reasons.

L was just as skinny as Raito expected—he could see ribs, despite his attempts to get L eating more substance in his meals lately—but the detective was also well-defined and more than adequately endowed. L didn't have much hair other than the mop on his head, as if he was just as young as he could sometimes pretend to be. It still amazed Raito that this man was so much older than him.

"Raito…" L said with a little urgency, and more than a little embarrassment.

Raito took the hint. He looked back up into L's dark eyes and this time he didn't grin. Instead he smiled as genuinely as he could to soothe his friend's concerns. Raito would make this as easy and painless as possible. And he would enjoy every moment of it.

The first thing Raito wanted to do was show L just how wonderful sexual attention was when someone other than yourself was giving it to you. Raito had never really thought about whether or not L got himself off on occasion. He never noticed anything when they were handcuffed, or these past few weeks, but he knew first hand how ingenious men could be when it came to finding ways to relieve themselves.

This would be very different than anything like that, especially with L's inexperience, so he wanted it to be as worthwhile as he could make it. By the time he was finished, L would spread his legs and plead.

Raito shook his head. No. He didn't want it to be like that. Well, he wanted L to be wantonly blissful from his attentions, but he didn't need that kind of perverse control over the other man. Deep down he knew that he would be begging for it too by the time he finished his attentions. And that was fine by him.

Kissing L first, Raito knew to move slowly so L would feel secure and comfortable. He started a slow descent then, gently touching his lips to the bruised skin of L's neck from previous attentions, and then moving further down. He nipped lightly, kissed deeply, all things girlfriends had liked, and that he enjoyed as well. But when he got to L's waistline he felt his friend jump.

"What is it?" Raito asked.

L was breathing heavy and pink in his cheeks, contrasting greatly with his white skin. "Are you…going to…?"

Raito had to grin; L couldn't even say it. "That was the idea. Don't you want me to?" Raito added, dipping his head to swipe his tongue over L's weeping tip.

L shuddered. He was speechless—blessedly, as far as Raito was concerned—and could only nod his head, as if to say, "do continue." Raito was almost positive those would be the words L would use too, if the detective could find his tongue, that is.

Meanwhile, Raito's tongue was just getting warmed up.

Returning to the waiting area below L's waist, Raito decided a little bit of teasing was in order to make this last as long as he was hoping. He skimmed over the prize at first, offering only the occasional lick that made little mewling noises escape L's throat. The rest of the time he stuck to nibbling L's hips, his inner thighs, even the velvety sacks waiting just between L's legs. The precision of it, the slow progression, had L panting. Raito could sense that the detective wanted to ask for it, wanted to ask Raito to stop teasing and just take him into his mouth, but Raito wouldn't do it. He waited. Waited until he knew the words were on the tip of L's tongue, and only then did he finally descend.

L's back arched to feel himself completely taken in and he moaned deeply, reminiscent of his voice when he was still the other kind of shinigami. It gave Raito chills to hear it.

In response, Raito hastened his work, swirling his tongue and taking L deep into the back of his throat. It was strange. He had had this done to him many times, but never performed the act on a man himself. It was easy. Because he knew what would feel good, knew from experience, and it thrilled him to be the first person to ever do such a thing to L.

Soon he would be responsible for L's death a second time, only it would be a little death, a glorious death he could give the detective again and again.

Raito felt L pulling at his hair and moaning as if he wanted Raito to stop, but the word itself never came, and so Raito worked on. He worked L until the other man's gasps were short and coming faster. He worked until he knew L was right there and when L gave a small cry, his face twisted in a way Raito had never seen, Raito finally pulled away, just in time for L to release onto his own skin. Raito knew L would not be offended by this. He would have expected the same. The last thing Raito wanted was for their first sexual encounter to end with a gag.

Little by little L's breathing slowed but his face was still flush and the rest of his body gave clear signs that it was not yet time to call it a night. L did not notice this at first. He was staring at Raito and looked mildly disappointed.

"I didn't want you to do that," he said.

Raito felt his throat tighten. Maybe he should have listened to the signs after all instead of waiting to hear a damn word. "L…I just…"

"We didn't even get to _you_. It felt amazing, but…I wanted it to…be together."

At first Raito thought L was saying he had hoped they would come together, difficult as Raito knew that was, but the more he turned it over in his mind the more he came to realize what L really meant. The detective couldn't bring himself to just say it out loud, but he wanted them to have sex, not just to be gotten off.

Yet again, Raito had to laugh.

"You think this means we have to stop for the night? Just coz you had one?" Raito said. He grabbed some tissues from the nightstand and wiped L's stomach clean, tossing the soiled tissues to the floor to be gotten rid of later. "L," he went on, "Who says you can't have two? You're young, we're both horny as hell, good as we are at hiding it, and I, as well as your own body if you hadn't noticed, am more than ready to keep going. Sound good to you?"

A brief glance down between his own legs, between Raito's, and then back up into Raito eyes, had L blushing harder than ever and feeling very foolish. "So," he said, "What next?"

"What do you think is next?" Raito answered with a grin, lowering his body on top of L's again and kissing his companion fiercely. L was a quick learner; Raito already couldn't get enough of their lip locks.

They continued kissing, hands roaming, when suddenly L touched the fabric of Raito's boxers and was reminded at how unfairly matched they were right now. He didn't say anything, he simply pulled from the kiss, pushed Raito up a little, and started to tug the boxers down. This was not easy with Raito on top, but with a little help from Raito, L managed it, tossing the boxers off the bed to join his own.

Now they were even. In more ways than one.

"You know how this works, right?" Raito said between kisses and grinds of their hips.

L's eyes were glazed but he managed to sound more or less put-together. "I know the mechanics," he replied.

"Right. So…you know this is going to hurt a little."

"Yes."

"And you're okay with that? I don't have so big of an ego anymore that I'm not willing to swap positions if you'd feel more—"

"No," L broke in quickly, "I want it to be you. I'd…do it wrong."

Raito smiled a little. Again he felt as if he was the elder of the two. L had many facades but the real L missed a lot of growing up along the way. "You can't do it wrong if you know the basics," Raito said reassuringly, "Just…differently. Better or worse, maybe, but not wrong. I'll gladly stay where I am, but if one day…you want to…I wouldn't refuse you. I need you to know that."

"I know," L replied, and that is all he needed to say. He was as nervous as he looked, but he trusted Raito. That alone was incredible.

Raito had been trying so hard to avoid allowing this to happen, but now that he was ready and pleased to be in this position, he realized—sadly—that they had nothing to help the process along. They didn't need condoms. They were dead, after all. Gunshots would hurt, but that kind of protection would be a little unnecessary. But there were other things they could have, one of which Raito knew would make this easier on L.

Nothing to be done about it now, Raito thought, but as L laid back and spread his legs, just as Raito wanted, Raito had to spit into his hand for as much lubrication as they were going to get aside from themselves.

Raito had never done this with a man, but he had had sex this way with several women. The process itself wouldn't be any different, just the feeling of it on L's part. Raito worked quickly but carefully. Every time L flinched Raito hesitated. This would be difficult at first. It was only Raito stretching him just now, and L was already tensing too much.

"You have to relax," Raito whispered, "Even this part can feel good, but you have to relax first. The last thing I would ever do is hurt you on purpose."

L laughed so suddenly it startled Raito a bit. "Irony," is all L said in explanation, and he immediately began to relax just as Raito instructed. Preparation continued much more quickly after that, and finally they both knew there was nothing more to do but take the next step.

No words were spoken, but their eyes locked as Raito pressed forward. L gasped and started to tense again but he forced himself to relax, breathing deeply as Raito pushed in further. By the time Raito was fully inside, L didn't know what he had been cringing about. Therefore it was L who moved first, bucking up so that Raito pressed in so deeply it made L's eyes roll back.

Raito grunted. This was actually happening. He was inside L, having sex with L, a man he couldn't have a stranger history with. And everything felt so right that after the first few strokes Raito wasn't thinking about anything but what he was doing.

The act was so overdo and they had worked themselves up so much, it didn't take long for Raito to come. He wasn't sure if it was okay for him to come inside of L, but L wouldn't let him pull away. As it turned out L was quite aggressive, which really shouldn't have surprised Raito. No, L hung on tightly, keeping Raito in place, and because he had already come once that night it took much longer for him to join Raito. There was no doubt in Raito's mind that L was enjoying every moment, so as much as L seemed to want, Raito continued to give until L finally came a second time, hard.

They were both sweaty and trembling when Raito pulled free and flopped over to his side of the bed. For several minutes they just lied there beside each other, panting for breath, sticky in many places, and terribly content.

Raito looked over at L and could hardly believe the large smile he saw. L's eyes were closed, as if he was having the most amazing dream, but the truth was he had lived the dream he sought and was simply basking in it.

"Fuck, that was amazing," L said.

Raito was certain he must have heard his friend incorrectly until L opened his eyes and looked at him. Oh, L really said that, but Raito decided it could be blamed on what he could only describe as L's…intoxication.

Following his words, L leaned over to Raito, took his face with one hand, and kissed him with far more expertise than he really had. When the detective pulled away he just stared at Raito and there was so much emotion in his black eyes that Raito feared his friend was about to say something far more intimate than he was ready to hear.

"L…"

"Thank you, Raito-kun," L said, "Not only for this, but for always treating me as if…I am as normal as you are. Thank you…for allowing me to know things normal people know. I am not…normal. I know that. I have been called everything from strange to being labeled…a freak. But you…you treat me as an equal."

"L, I don't understand what you're—"

"Please, Raito, let me speak," L said, and Raito knew to listen more closely whenever the honorific was dropped from his name, "I walk straighter, dress better, eat better, sleep better only because of you. I still sit funny in my chair, go without shoes, hold my pencil as if it is diseased, and act awkwardly in situations I do not know well. And yet you…allow all that as if it is normal, though you know it is not. You…touch me…when no one else would. You make it so I can touch another…without fear. I am not normal, but you make me feel as if I could be. And for that, I will always be more grateful than any words or action could ever say."

Raito was stunned. His usual afterglow conversations had never been so serious and sentimental before. Misa usually just chattered on about something Raito could never remember nor care about and then fell asleep. Oh, she'd always say she loved him, but from her it never mattered. The thought that L was going to say those words, however, scared Raito. Hearing it from those lips _would_ matter.

Raito never tried to look at L differently than other people did. He saw L as unique, to be kind about it, but always as an equal. L's quirks were simply apart of him. It never occurred to Raito that he was putting up with them. To him L would always be normal for L. That's what Raito loved about him.

Liked. Raito didn't want to get ahead of himself.

"L, I really don't know how to respond to that. Yeah, you're weird. I'm glad you enjoy the new clothes and eating real food once in a while, but I would never ask you to change who you are. You changed me for the better. If ever there is something you think I've changed in you, I hope it is the same. Now…can we stop with the sentimental for tonight and get some sleep?" Raito added with a smile, "You wore me out."

As predicted, a blush ran across L's nose. Raito didn't buy it too much this time though. There was an animal inside L raging to get out and Raito had finally caught a true glimpse of it. He couldn't wait for it to stick around.

It was L who grabbed the tissues this time, and it took quite a few before they felt comfortable enough to curl under the covers. L tucked his head under Raito's chin, as always, and both knew there would no longer be a question as to why they would always find themselves tangled up tight in the morning.

"So," Raito said as they began to drift to sleep, "First time a success?"

L shifted a little. "Are you questioning your performance or is this a general question?"

"Smart ass."

L shifted again and Raito just knew the detective was grinning. "I have no complaints. Touching oneself does not compare."

"So you do jerk off?"

"Of course. I'm a man."

Raito had to laugh. "Of course," he repeated, and hugged L a little closer.

"Raito?"

"Mm?"

"Would it frighten you if I said…I…"

Raito tensed.

"If I said…I couldn't live without you?"

And Raito relaxed. It may just be semantics, but it eased Raito anyway. "No, L, it wouldn't frighten me. I couldn't live without you either. Not anymore. I guess that's why we ended up dead," he finished with a laugh.

"Dead together?" L added.

"Yeah," Raito said, "And happily ever after."

THE REAL END

A/N: I'm busy okay. No, I have no excuses. I've been bummed looking for work and finding nothing, while living with my fiance and future mother-in-law. If you can avoid ever doing that, DO. My honey and I are great, but life is tough. Just got a job I think I will love, however, and finally got the writing bug. Sorry to those reading my Saiyuki. I will get to it when I can. Thanks to all who have stuck with me, and as always, see ya next ficcie!

Crimson


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